


Raspberries

by silvered_glass



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Clubbing, Dancing, Dislike to Like, Drinking, Getting Together, Grinding, M/M, Oral Sex, POV Alternating, Recreational Drug Use, UST, engineered hardwood flooring installation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 06:45:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 41,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12451827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvered_glass/pseuds/silvered_glass
Summary: Nick's stuck nursing a broken heart, trying to run a club where he's hard pressed to say what's worse - the interior design or the vodka and to top it all off he's got a second in charge who resents him and is taking self management to new heights.Louis is Nick’s bar manager, he's great at fixing things up and sorting everyone out apart from himself.Their friends want to see them get over themselves, but they've got nothing in common apart from their shitty club and a new-found interest in flooring.Nothing at all..





	Raspberries

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: So put your arms around me tonight/Let the music lift you up/Like you've never been so high (Camila Cabello - Crying in the Club)  
>  Suggested pairing(s): Nick Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson  
>  Optional extras: Non-famous AU club fic (DJ Nick?). It starts because they both have someone they’re trying to forget.
> 
> —…—
> 
> Thank you so much for this prompt [Writcraft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writcraft/pseuds/Writcraft), also for your support and enthusiasm and wisdom while I wrote this. Grimmyfest, as I keep calling it, has been so much fun and I think we're all much indebted.  
>  I'm also so grateful for [pillarboxred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pillarboxred) you are utterly lovely and invaluable. And [Charlotte Bird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlotte_Bird) you are a joy and I hope you like your disco ball.
> 
> This fic has a [playlist here](https://open.spotify.com/user/0iwp5sof22napz801h5altbiq/playlist/2yNEc6nMbseDPv4Te81ZjV) if you'd like to listen.
> 
> Please note this is set nowish, but they are both a few years younger, same age difference. Zayn isn't 'in' this story as such but he's mentioned and fair warning it's with the bias that he's an ex.

******—…—**

 

**October**

 

They bought him a coach ticket not a train one, and Nick should have known when he got the e-ticket for the National Express that it was going to be a fucking disaster.

When he climbs out of the bus in Bournemouth it’s cold and dark and there’s not even the smell of the sea in the wind. He climbs inside a taxi and watches silently as he’s driven through the unfamiliar streets to the flat the company arranged. It’s three rooms of sadness. Everything is brown, the walls a discoloured cream that might as well be brown. The sofa is a brown micro-suede that’s worn away to be shiny in the centre of one of the cushions. Another single loser who spent so long sitting on the couch he wore a butt groove into it.

 

 ** _Aimee;_ ** _Not so much a groove as a patch though?_

 

He gets back when he sends her a picture.

 

In the morning he has to get a bus back into town. It comes every forty minutes. When it arrives, he asks the driver to let him know when he gets to the corner of Stafford and Old Christchurch and the driver looks him up and down and says, “You’ll be for Raspberries then.”

And yeah, Nick is _'for Raspberries.'_

“How’d you guess?” he answers, trying for friendly but it sounds resigned, maybe a little desperate.

Is it written over his face? Washed up at thirty. It probably is. He’d ask what his life is anyway but he’s not sure he is alive, because, he thinks as he settles into the torn-up vinyl covered bus seat, surely this is all just a sign that he died and just didn’t notice and he’s now descended to hell.

 

**—…—**

 

**Three Weeks Ago**

 

He’s stood in front of the three steps up to the front door. At this moment, it's really bloody hard to remember why he came back. Surprised himself a little bit to be honest. Maybe he should’ve transferred. But where? Stupid specialised undergrad courses. And anyway, his Mum would have killed him if he deferred _again,_ he's already years behind his mates in terms of work and life as it is and every uni town is bloody expensive and he’s got debts and the student loan only goes so far. He had a job in Bournemouth, more than a job really, and a room, and Liam and Niall and the rest. Harry.

But fuck.

The amount of mornings he sat on these stupid cracked steps smoking one last fag before going inside with him. Still a bit pissy, still a bit high, sometimes a bit of both, sometimes just drunk on dancing or each other.

Never thought he’d be coming back on his own.

 

“Louis!” comes a shout from behind him. Louis sucks on the end of his cigarette and flicks it to the side as he turns around, fixes a smile on his face.

"Oi-oi Niall!" he shouts out, sounds a little loud to his own ears. Niall doesn't seem to notice. He's lumbering towards him with rucksack two thirds of the size of himself and pulling the largest wheelie suitcase that Louis has ever seen.

"Tommo when'd you get in? Seen anyone yet? Did you get that track I sent 'ya this morning?"

"Just now, only you mate and I've not had a chance yet." Louis grins. It's nice to see Niall. Which is surprising actually. He's spent the summer avoiding the fuck out of the whole world. Smoking up with his old mates back home and getting guilt trip type looks from his Mum and sisters for not spending more time with them. He'd blown off going to visit Niall, blown off going to Leeds Fest with Liam and some of the others, blown off trips to London, blown off that meeting at Warehouse Projects. Feels sick thinking of that, thinking of it all.

"So last year of it all hey mate?" Niall says with a nod at the cracked render three story house in front of them, "going to be fucking brilliant!"

Louis manages a grunt, maybe.

"Want a hand with your bag?" Niall asks and Louis looks skeptically at Niall's suitcase and then at his face.

"Do _you_ want a hand Niall?"

"Nah I'm alright, thanks though!" And Niall is somehow lifting his ridiculous luggage up the steps. Louis hefts his duffle onto his shoulder and picks up his cardboard box and scuffs his feet after his friend.

"Use your big arse to open the door Tommo." Niall pants out just as the thing swings open and Liam appears before them, his arms already outstretched for Niall's bag and a massive smile on his face.

 

Once Louis has unpacked, aka left his bag on his unmade bed in the front room on the first floor and then gone and taken a piss, he hops back down the stairs, jumping over the saggy creaky one and swinging himself around the balustrade and into the lounge.

"Liam got any beer in mate?" He calls out.

 

They arrange themselves on the sofa, it's cosy almost. Niall's got his guitar, Liam's been in town for a few days and has done a full shop and he’s got crisps on the wobbly old coffee table and a case of Peronis in the fridge. They spend a while just talking shit, there’s not so much catching up, all of them have pretty regular messaging contact throughout the holidays, Louis doesn’t have anything that he’s done to tell them about anyhow. Liam does ask how his sister’s doing after she broke her arm and it takes Louis a moment to realise that’s the excuse he gave for pulling out of Leeds at the last minute, somehow the lie being easier to tell than the truth.

Louis has questions for Liam about the club, Liam stayed in town throughout summer to manage his Dad's rental and to keep on DJing at the club. Head Office had sent a new manager about two weeks before it all went to shit and so when Louis had gone home he'd not thought it mattered much. Thought he was done with it all and good riddance to it. But the new guy had’t even lasted five weeks and from then Liam and the cleaning ladies and Leigh-Anne who came back each summer to her parents and worked the bar had held the place together. There are a few others. People who work the bars, Niall who was essentially a glassie and worked irregularly and basically for free drinks alone. People who made a living from that stupid gross dingy club.

 

Then Chris from Head Office had rung Louis’ Mum’s house phone and Louis’ Mum had berated him for ignoring calls from his boss on his mobile and Chris had asked Louis to come back from summer early. Louis hadn’t been able to do that. He'd made up an excuse about his family needing him, but he hadn't been ready to even think about coming back then.

Then he’d got a text from Nancy, one of the ladies who do the cleaning, and he’d thought about her, Robert, and how this job allowed her to be home with him most of the time, and he thought about Liam’s stupid re-mixes and how he'd get placement credit for his work at the club, how he’d got better each year, how he’d always been there so earnest and happy in Louis’ life ever since they met as teenagers.  He thought about Harry cleaning beer lines and actually knowing how to pour a pint because of that guy who had been his step dad for a moment. Didn't think about Harry in the in the little staff break room.

No, instead he thought about how he couldn’t let them down and about the way his Mum's face seemed to crumple a little every time he gave her a grunt instead of an answer when she asked what he was doing that day; if he had any plans for the week. He thought what her face would be like if he told her he had no plans. Not just for that day or week or holiday, but for the for foreseeable bleak future.

And he signed up for his classes. And didn't miss his train to go back down south.

 

After Liam fetches beer number two for all of them, he clears his throat and looks at Louis nervously, “So Louis, we have that spare room.”

Jesus. Louis had just been starting to feel relaxed.

Niall cuts in over Liam. “You know Harry will be looking for a place, can’t stay in ressies after first year.”

Louis swallows. It wasn’t Harry’s fault. Wasn’t Harry’s fault at all. Fuck, Louis loves Harry. They’d been thick as thieves from the moment they met, if anything people had thought it was him and Harry that had had a thing. Had a big unspoken about intense wonderful fun brilliant life changing all-encompassing thing. But it hadn’t been him and Harry that had had that. Had that thing.

“He should move in ‘n all of course.” Louis hears himself say and Liam’s grinning that odd too-big grin that makes this equally odd secret dimple appear in his cheek and Niall is jumping up and already calling Harry before Louis can even fully understand what he’s said.

“We’ve repainted the room and everything. Well all of them have been, Dad did it before he let the place for the summer.” Liam says nervously

“Yeah I noticed mine’s a bit pinker.”

“Swallows Dawn the paint in your room is called, Tommo.” Liam’s still smiling. “Went down a treat with summer letting market.”

“Honestly three months a gentle week by week summer home and the rest of the year home to us degenerates, your Dad’s an odd landlord Liam.”

“He specifically asked me to tell you not to light any fires in any part of the house this year, Louis.”

Louis gulps his beer. His stomach still butterflies, his mind on Niall over in the kitchen still on the phone, “Tell Geoff I’ll try my best but he did hang curtains in my room that look straight out of Laura Ashley, only thing for ‘em is a lighter.” Louis tries to joke. Sounds stilted.

Niall comes back in then. He’s lost his hat somewhere in the kitchen and his hair is all smushed down, flat and brown and he’s grinning. “Hazza’s heading straight over, him and his Ma been looking at places this morning but he’s keen so that’s sorted.” He ends his sentence looking at Louis, and Louis smiles in return.

“Brilliant. Going make him bake me bread every morning,” he says. Sounds stilted.

He gulps at his beer.

 

It’s not bad when Harry gets there. His Mam, Anne, has kisses for them all and three shopping bags full of veggies that Louis is sure Harry will end up washing out of the veggie crisper when they have turned to slush in a few weeks. And it’s nice to see Harry. Wide smiles and then almost as quick he's worrying his lip and nodding his head listening to Liam tell him how they split the electric bill and what the internet password is. When Anne leaves, Louis helps Harry carry his last boxes up to the attic room. His room. Now Harry’s room.

It's cream coloured now, the room. Cream with pale blue curtains with sea shells on them and god Geoff is terrible at interior decorating. There’s only room for a King single and Louis should offer Harry the queen down in his room. Harry is tall, well taller than Louis, and Harry has a whole load of stuff, boxes and a proper amount of clothes, and Harry is probably not going to flunk out within the first two months of his third year because he can’t get over his. His what? How do you get over someone that wasn’t ever a proper thing?

“Louis?” Harry says his name like a question as Louis stands by the bed, eyes wandering aimlessly around the bare walls. Not even able to properly place where The Misfits poster used to hang anymore.

“Haz.” Louis says. Finally lets himself look at him.

“Odd innit.” Harry observes.

Louis shrugs, hopes he looks unbothered. “Yeah.”

“Lou.” Harry takes a deep breath.

Don’t apologise - _don’t apologise,_ Louis thinks.

“He was a fucking prick you know. Didn’t fucking even understand what you two were about but fuck, I’m not the person you want to hear this from and all, but you don’t just do any of that stuff and then to just piss off...”

“Yeah.” Louis cuts him off. “Yeah I know.”

Harry’s looking at him that way he used to back when they first hung out, that way that you can’t turn away from but it’s a bit too intense to be comfortable and Louis feels a little too heavy. No one’s talked to him about it. He’s not let them, bloody Harry just dives right in. He’s troubling his bottom lip with his thumb and pointer finger and Louis loves him a lot.

“It’s alright Harry, you and me I mean, we’ll be alright.”

“Yeah.” Harry nods, gives a closed lip smile, his eyes uncertain.

 

Louis says something about needing to finish his unpacking, goes back down a flight of stairs to the first floor where his room is, the back room is Niall’s and between them is the main bathroom, Liam has a self-contained room in a converted garage out in the garden which Louis thinks as he surveys his light pink tinted walls he’s going to have to work out some way to win off Liam in a bet. Well he would if he thought he was going to be staying.

Louis pulls his sheets out of his duffle and half-heartedly throws the fitted sheet over the mattress, doesn’t even pull the corners over, just grabs the downy out of the box and having shucked his shoes off, drops his jeans on the floor and climbs into bed. If summer has taught him anything, it’s that napping solves nothing but does allow you a break from your own sad stagnant mind.

 

**—…—**

**October**

 

The place is a dump. Nick hadn’t really expected anything else. Maybe something a bit gaudier. If the chain of nightclubs that he works for has anything that they are known for it’s gaudy and overdone interior design. Raspberries is not that. Well, apart from the light up dance floor, and the bright deep fuchsia paint on the walls. Also, while there's only very limited seating, some very old built-in booths over on the far wall, at the bar sit some new space age shiny white bar stools. They’re completely out of place and Nick knows it must be from Head Office. Bulk ordering and sending out furnishings without treating each venue as its own business, without looking at what works in an individual town or location. It's why they went bust really. Trying to make a one size fits all super club. They look as stupid as that business model had been.

 

The sound equipment is well maintained. The DJ set-up is up to date, and the analogue one is still in place as well. And isn’t dirty or sticky, it looks cared for, respected. Nick thinks about his records. And then stops thinking about his records, guesses they are _his_ records now. The nicely maintained setup is an odd juxtaposition to the bathrooms which he finds through a door to the right of the bar. The male ones have one toilet sitting in the middle of the thing and no doors on the cubicles, as if someone got half way through a renovation it realised they didn't know what they were doing and left.

The bar itself is tidy, quite long and well spaced out. There are two beers on tap that Nick’s never heard of which is interesting. The rest of the stock looks very typical for a uni type crowd. There are a lot of tiny plastic shot glasses in stacks. Nick looks out over the large room, a carpet, aqua with gold splashes thrown across it covers the area from the entry to the bar and then there are long low steps all around the edge of the lowered dance floor. A few high tables sit against the balustrade that separates the two areas and then the built in banquettes on the other side of the dance floor. It’s a shabby disjointed mess. But clean.

The door on the other side of the bar has a keypad next to it, Nick doesn’t know the passcode but he tries the handle and it opens straight away, and he’s staring at the stockroom. Which isn't the best security wise, especially for when they’d be busy at night. The stock levels seem well maintained at first glance and Nick is flicking through an up to date stock-taking list when there’s a voice behind him.

“Alright mate, if your 'gonna steal the vodka you’ll be better going up to the Walkabout, even that has better quality than we do.”

Nick turns around to see a shorter guy, handsome in a scruffy way, a holding out a broom handle like a jousting pole.

“Are you going to poke me?” he asks, amused, "Should I use this clipboard for a shield?"

“Poke! Why are _you_ poking around? Are you nicking stuff?” The guy jabs with broom handle a little towards Nick's stomach.

He takes a step back and holds his free hand up in surrender. “I'm Nick, I’m the manager here.”

“No you’re not, that's me you tosser, now get the fuck out before I call the police.”

Nick, puts the clipboard down on top of the neatly lined up vodka bottles and tips his head to the side. He’s not sure who this man is but there's a shaft of light coming through the two tiny, high-up windows and it’s just shown him how blue the guy’s eyes are. Nick can’t help but straighten up a little, pull his shoulders back.

“I’m Nick Grimshaw. Sonic didn’t tell you all? I’m the new manager for Raspberries. Just got into Bournemouth last night, and you are?”

The guy looks at Nick for a moment, his face unchanging, and then turns on his toes and walks off swearing, loudly.

“Fucking useless cunts, just fucking perfect what a fucking joke I’m going to fucking...”

“Okay.” Nick mutters, takes a deep breath and follows.

 

When he gets back out to the main bar area the swearing broom brandisher is on the phone, a taller but younger looking very handsome man is behind the bar holding the base part of the phone as it’s stretched between where it must sit on the back-bar bench and where the guy is standing yelling into it on the public side of the bar.

 

Nick raises his hand in a hesitant wave, he gets a disconcertingly large and seemingly genuine smile in return and then the other guy looks anxiously at the broom brandisher. Nick walks around behind the bar.

“Hi, I’m Nick Grimshaw, I’m the new manager from Sonic.” He says quietly to the taller young-looking guy.

“Hi, ‘m Harry, I work behind the bar for Louis.” He says in a low voice and with a nod to the guy in front of him who’s currently shouting something about _‘lack of notice and using up all his data minutes learning how to install a toilet and is there no fucking decency anymore?’_

“Louis.” Nick murmurs, something clicking over from the scant information he’d been given about Raspberries when they’d told him he was being sent down here. “Who’s that he’s on the phone to then?” Nick asks, something inside him already knowing what Harry is going to say.

“I think Chris from Head Office,” Harry says slowly, “’bout you maybe.”

“Just fucking bullshit that’s what it is, fucking use people and spit 'em out without any consideration how fucking hard they work or what they’ve fucking given up, You asked me back here you arse. You're all a bunch of corporate bollock twats and you deserve a fucking electric shock to your …”

Nick practically leaps over the bar he leans out so quickly and so far across it to grab the handset out of Louis’ hands.

“What the fuck!” Louis yells as Nick runs a few fingers through his hair and says an anxious hello into the handset.

“Grimshaw?”

“Yeah boss.”

“Did you fucking fire Louis? He’s the only asset that dump has.”

Nick bites back a comment that Louis certainly is an ass, or an arse to be more accurate and instead says while staring straight at Louis, voice very bored, "No I didn’t fire him, I’ve been here all of five minutes.  I think maybe there are some crossed wires.”

“Well, sort it out.” And with that Nick is listening to a dial tone. Odd really, normally when the other end of a line goes dead it’s just silence. There is something to be said for old style things, there’s something good about the finality of the dial tone. He’d have liked that with Matías he thinks.

Nick puts the phone handset back in the base which Harry still standing, holding it out from the wall, looking anxiously at Louis who’s got his hands on his hips and his head cocked staring at Nick.

“So. Hi, I’m Nick Grimshaw, new manager.  I take it you’re Louis the bar manager?”

“Bar manager? That what they call it?” Louis snorts.

Nick is oddly a little distracted. Louis moves his hands while he speaks; palm up to the ceiling in exasperation, fingers held next to his thumb while he looks imperiously at Nick and continues, eyes narrowed.

“I’m not sacked then?” A careless finger half motioned towards the door. It's sort of graceful but also overly expressive.

“No. Well. Maybe, you did just swear a _lot_ at one of the senior area managers.”

“Nah that’s alright Chris loves me.” Louis says. Butter wouldn’t melt Nick thinks. This Louis bloke is sharp angles and icy like his very bright blue eyes. Quite pretty angles, high cheekbones, distracting hands. He glances back at the tall other one, also handsome but somehow not in the same disconcerting way Louis is. If Harry was a girl Nick would be tempted to call him gamine. As it is, Nick really shouldn't be comparing who has the prettiest face out of his two new bar staff.

“So, ah, maybe you could show me around here?" He asks Louis, who stares at him for a moment longer and then turns and walks off.

He's halfway across the light up dance floor before Louis yells out, "Keep up Grimshaw."

 

**—…—**

 

Louis takes the Grimshaw bloke into the toilet first of all. Points at the bowl sitting in the middle of the bathroom and says, “So that’ll be yours to fix up now.”

The Grimshaw bloke takes his phone out and takes a picture. Louis doesn’t comment. The ponce is probably going to instagram it or something, looks the type. He's wearing fancy trainers and cut off shorts with threads hanging down and then a shirt with open buttons and a blazer on top. He looks ridiculous. He is ridiculous. Louis knows without even knowing him.

He takes him into the store room next, shows him the horrid cut-price vodka, where the bloke picks up the clipboard and hangs it back on the nail in the shelf. It’s all the company orders nowadays, cut price vodka and then he shows him the empty beer lines from the suppliers who still won’t trade with them because of what happened before.

He shows him the tiny office next to the staff break room where he does the paperwork and enters the staff hours for payroll and tries to avoid the leak in the roof and not to breathe too deeply because he’s sure there is mould in there and explains how you can’t open the window no matter how hard you try.

The Grimshaw bloke takes pictures of the stain on the roof from the leak.

When they get up to the DJ booth Louis is slightly mollified by the way Grimshaw looks over the decks, compliments them even and does seem to know what he's looking at. Louis watches the way he runs his hands over the analogue decks. He has long fingers, Louis thinks.

They get back into the main room, Grimshaw walks around tracking the lights, gets Louis to talk him through the system. Louis doesn't want to admit it to Grimshaw, but he doesn't know that much, and what he does he's learnt mostly off youtube videos and watching Liam.

 

Harry's sitting at the bar, head down, looks like he's doing some coursework. He's on one of the incongruous spaceship bar stools. Louis can't sit in them, for one, they infuriate him and secondly, he sort of slides off them.

"You don't have a disco ball."

Harry starts so suddenly he knocks one of his books off the top of the bar. "I know!" he yells out, turning all excited to look at Grimshaw, "I've been saying that to Louis all last year, we need a disco ball."

"You and your obsession with balls Haz." Louis can’t help but grin at him and then turning to face Grimshaw lets the smile drop from his face, "right so if you don't need me I've got a lecture."

"You're not on a shift?" Grimshaw asks.

"At 10.30 in the morning? No, no I'm not." Louis looks at Harry, "You coming Haz?"

Harry throws a quick glance between Louis and the Grimshaw bloke and then he lies to Louis. Outright scratches at his stupid curly hair and says blinking far too much, "I'm just in a good zone with this section Lou, might stay here and finish reading."

Which. Fucking hell. No one wants to stay in this place longer than they have to, and never when they are sober. Louis raises an eyebrow, but he doesn't have time to think about it really. If Harry wants to make friends with this bloke, and Harry does, Harry makes friends with fucking everyone after all, Louis isn't going to stand around and watch.

"Right, gotta go, see you at home Haz." He says in a very steady, not annoyed at all sounding voice. He grabs his helmet from where he’d left it on top of the bar, picks up his rucksack, and leaves without so much as a farewell to Grimshaw.

 

Something happened while Louis went to class. Because when he gets home the Grimshaw guy is sitting in the lounge, a drink with lemon in it in his hand and Harry is bent over laughing, like proper slapping his knee laughing, almost rolling off the armchair opposite the sofa laughing.

Niall comes barrelling past him into the room, plastic bags full of what smells like Thai and yelling "Oi Nick so when you let the dopey fuckers dock the boat what did they even say to the harbour master?"

And Louis can't. He just wants to sink into the sofa and drink beer and watch whatever-the-fuck boring TV comes on and bitch about the ponce Head Office has sent this time but he can't because the ponce is sitting on the damn sofa.

He starts walking backwards, which is dumb, because they all looked up when Niall came barrelling in and now Harry is jumping up and saying happily, “Louis, so glad you’re back I’ll fetch you a beer, Niall’s got food in and Nick’s been telling us about Spain you know he worked out there _we_ should work there.”

Louis watches Harry's stupid well-intentioned back walk away to the fridge and sits down in the armchair closest to the doorway.

“Do you ride then?” Grimshaw asks.

Louis looks at his helmet which he’s got sitting in his lap, arms wrapped around it, hugging it to him.

“That’s what she said!” Niall exclaims and both Louis and Grimshaw look at him with their heads tilted in question. “Sorry. Watched way too much Netflix these hols.” Niall admits cheerily. He’s serving rice into the bowls that Harry’s just dropped on the coffee table.

Louis puts his helmet on the floor, beside his armchair. “I have a scooter,” he says finally, looking between Harry and the Grimshaw bloke. What on earth has made Harry befriend the git. “Where’s my beer Haz?” His voice sounds a little sharper than he means it to, he was in a rush to cut off any further questions from Grimshaw.

“Oh forgot! Sorry Lou!” Harry looks up from the green curry he’s spooning into the bowls.

Grimshaw jumps up. “I need another, I’ll grab you one as well Lou.” He pauses, must see the way Louis is looking at him. “Louis,” he corrects.

Louis can’t really say no can he? He looks back at Harry who’s got this stupid look on his face. Hopeful maybe. Louis can’t help himself, he’s a sucker for Haz, he gives a quick smile and while Grimshaw is gone he launches into a detailed impersonation of one of the girls in his group project. She’s the embodiment of Luna Lovegood, really smart but also seemingly absent, just comes in with some wonderful observations at random moments but Louis is sure she’s going to end up being more important to the project then Perrie and her colour coded Excel and propensity for tapping her fingers on the table when she thinks they’ve all got off topic. Perrie strikes Louis as a planner not a doer, and if there is one thing he hates in putting together an event it’s the ones who plan but don’t do.

He gets that vibe from Grimshaw. Someone with hair that high probably gets exhausted from all that blow drying first thing and is done in for the rest of the day.

When Grimshaw gets back he holds the beer out to Louis with an expectant smile. Louis raises his eyebrows in acknowledgment, but he’s not thanking the guy, he didn’t buy the beer. Louis is pretty sure Niall did. Probably Liam.

 

As they eat Harry starts explaining his photography project to Grimshaw and he seems fully into it, nodding along and mentioning something about Irving Penn. Probably, Louis realises, he’s fully into Harry, and maybe that’s why Harry stayed back this morning. Maybe they had some strange love-at-first-sight fission thing this morning while he was too busy being furious at Head Office and fearing that one of the only reasons he had for even coming back to Bournemouth had been swept from underneath him.

Niall is forking food into his mouth and trying to explain to Nick the difference between Bournemouth University, where Liam and him study and the Arts Uni which Harry and Louis are at.

“How’d you all meet?” Grimshaw asks. Louis is looking at the way his body is angled, trying to remember what that thing on Buzzfeed said about body language and if people have the hots for other people. He sips his beer.

“Well, Harry came looking for work at Raspberries and so that’s how he met Louis and Zayn and then Louis and Liam had been mates since when they were what fifteen is it Tommo? And I think I just met Louis at a party at my ressies in first year and it was shit, I remember we were all standing round and the lights were on and it was shite, boring as sheep and Louis came in and not ten minutes later people are dancing and there’s a fucking blow up beach ball being thrown around and I’d just watched him do it all and I knew I wanted him to be my best mate.”

Harry starts laughing, the way he always does before he says something he thinks is funny. “Niall just likes you for your balls Louis,” he comes up with.

Louis gives him an exasperated look but can’t help but smile. Harry looks a little sweaty, he always adds too much extra chilli to things.

“So, I met Liam heading out when we got in, and Zayn? Does he live here?”

Louis stands up suddenly, having forgotten he still had his empty bowl on his knee. It clatters to the ground, the fork making a jagged sound on the china.

“Shit.” Louis picks the bowl up. Harry’s stood up too, he looks nervous.

“I'll get it Lou.”

“All good, sorry, I’m tired, going to head up, I need to go in early and actually finish off that toilet tomorrow before going to uni.”

“Oh, I have a plumber coming out,” Grimshaw says.

A plumber. They never had a budget for plumbers from Head Office before, that’s why Louis was fucking going to cement in the bowl himself. That’s why every time one of the bowls gets cracked from, well, from whatever fucking odd stuff goes on in a nightclub toilet in a club that sells two for one shots for six pounds, Louis spends a minimal amount on a reclaimed bowl from a mate he has who's a builder and then cements the thing in himself. This would have been his third toilet.

He realises everyone is quiet. Grimshaw looks confused, clueless, and Harry is pulling at his lip. Niall is swigging his beer looking between them all.

"Well that's good news ain't it Tommo?" Niall says.  He seems a bit confused too. "Always bloody doing so much for that place he is." Niall address this to Grimshaw.

"But not plumbing in toilets?" Grimshaw questions, “Like, that’s a bit more than bar manager 'innit?”

"It's not plumbing really, just concreting it in and I’m not doing it anymore I guess," Louis says.

Grimshaw looks a little shocked, “Shit. What, why?”

“Well the old company stop paying the bills, not that big a town, you shaft a few vans men ‘n they all know, no one would come and do any work and Head Office didn’t really give any money in the budget, wanted to make sure people got paid first.”

“The tradesmen?”

“My staff.”

“But pay comes from Head Office?”

“And it’d be late,” Louis says flatly. Nick obviously has no idea the mess he’s walked into the end of. Louis could explain it to him, but he’ll be gone in another month probably. None of the managers have lasted longer than a month.

“It’s Okay now.” Harry pipes up, sounds like he’s trying to smooth something over, “since the takeover pay is always on time, and it’s great that they kept us open.”

“Yeah, well, on paper it was the place with the most profit and least expenditure.” Grimshaw sounds rattled.

Louis barks out a funny bitter laugh. “There’s a reason for that.” He says and holds his hands out, waves them and raises his eyebrows.

He’s trying to say _it’s me, it’s me you dick_ . I’m that whole daft stupid place; I’m all it’s got and its... It’s ... Fuck. It’s daft and stupid and _it’s_ all I’ve got. That would be the truth, and he definitely doesn’t want to say that.

Instead he says, “I’ve got some reading to do.” And turns on his heel, can hear Niall as he thumps up the stairs, “Louis never does reading. Is he alright Haz?”

 

He doesn’t stop to hear what Harry replies though. He doesn’t really care, He’s not even sure if he’s pissed off anymore. He’d been pissed off this morning. Thought he’d lost his job, which after all he's bloody done, which after he came back to Bournemouth for that stupid place, well he'd been fuming. And panicking if he's honest. That's the most unnerving, how the bottom fell out of his stomach when he'd thought he'd been replaced. And who knows he might still do the negative voice in his head says, it'd be just his luck. Except Chris had said between Louis swearing at him that there was no way he’d let Grimshaw sack him and Louis had to be mistaken, which yeah, Louis had been but still.

He kicks his shoes off and lays on his bed, opens his Instagram up on his phone and scrolls for a moment, then drops his hand, arm bouncing on the bed.

He stares at the wall across from him. He used to put up the flyers from the nights that they did at the club that were the most successful.

It was so strange how it all happened.

It’d been a bloody blessing that Geoff’s accountant had recommended that he buy an investment property at the same time as Liam and him had been heading off to uni. They’d not planned to both be in the same place, but it had been brilliant that it had worked out that way.

 

Liam and him had met at some family holiday at Center Parcs when Louis was about fifteen, Liam a few years younger. Louis had been bored out of his mind that holiday. An odd last gasp thing for his Mum and Dad maybe, spending money they didn’t have on a family holiday. Lots of activities for his younger sisters, not so many for Louis who’d have preferred to be back in Donny smoking up around at Calvin or Stan’s place. Instead he’d bumped into Liam incompetently trying to play pool in the rec centre. He’d been afraid of everything, of breaking any rules, but so friendly and happy and wonderful distraction from Louis’ creeping fears that an overcast six days in Sherwood Forrest was never going be enough to stop whatever was happening to his parent’s marriage.

Louis and Liam had managed to tip over a paddle boat, crash a 4-wheeler when they weren’t even in it and get banned from a pottery painting session for trying to paint an anatomically correct owl, and that had been Liam’s idea. Liam is one of the only people to see Louis cry, and it’s happened twice, once after Louis walked in on his folks having a screaming match that holiday.

They’d been best mates since then, staying in touch over Facebook and meeting up during holidays. Louis had proudly run a Liam fan twitter account for the hot moment he’d got to judges houses one season of X-Factor, and had spent afternoons planning some huge actually decent festival based around super-pop act Liam Payne. Big Weekend but with less annoying radio personalities he'd thought. They would be some undefeatable dream-team of artist and mega-manager.

But Liam didn't go any further than that, and then he started taking his running a lot more seriously so he didn't audition again and instead they have made do over the years living together in a slightly dilapidated pastel painted house at a seaside resort that is closer to a massive Asda than to the beach and sometimes Louis tweets an update such as ' _Liam sets record for most times someone can passive aggressively remind another person to put the bins out'_ or _'Liam singing that old tune Louis put the bins out. It’s a no from me.’_ Louis really doesn’t like putting the bins out.

 

He’d gone out looking for bar work before he’d even gone up to uni that fresher’s week, the first place he walked into had been Raspberries. Nothing too fatalistic there, it’s the first club on Old Christchurch Road when you’re walking from after the pedestrian mall and even though it’d been mid-afternoon the door had been open.

So Louis had gone in, and once he’d taken a few steps, and his eyes had adjusted to the dim light contrasting with the stupidly bright walls, he’d found himself blinking up at the most attractive man he’d ever fucking met.

A person who’d proceeded to stare at him blankly while he stuttered through his explanation of why he was there, how he loved being a part of putting together events and being a part of making people have experiences and how Louis wanted to help people create memories in a way they couldn’t on their own, and not even taking the resume that Louis had held out towards him, the guy had just asked him if he could unscrew bottle caps from WKD bottles and Louis had said yes, and then the guy had climbed down the ladder he’d been up, and stepped right into Louis’s space.

They’d been about the same height and Louis hadn’t been able to breathe.

 

He got the job and after his first shift, when he stank of sweat and beer and he was washing his hands in the sink at the bar Zayn had come up behind him, let his hands run down his forearms, over the little sticky splashes from lemonade and raspberry cordial and god knows what and holding him still he’d said in his ear _‘come back and wash up at mine.’_

And Louis had. And that had been it, that had been two years of Louis’s life.

That had been uni coursework and Zayn and the shit club and the ins and outs of keeping the place running when the head office stopped paying suppliers and then stopped paying them, and Zayn had moved into the attic at Liam’s, and then the whole chain of clubs had got sold and bought but still had no money. It was endless. That had been Louis knowing that Zayn didn’t get why Louis kept doing things at the club, didn’t get why he put the effort in so much. And that should have been a clue maybe. Louis trying to get enough takings to pay Nancy and Gwen and the girl who did the bar that first year and then Harry and Jesy and the others. Liam started to DJ there as a favour because they had no-one, could pay no-one and all Zayn did was laugh at him the next morning while they lay in bed. Imitate his vocal runs and adlibs he’d added over the tracks. And Louis had laughed along.

That had been Louis turning up at Zayn’s after a horrid open book essay exam and finding him in bed with some girl even though it had been Zayn who said to come over, but then Zayn who booked for them to go to Malia together. Giving the tickets to Louis by just sliding them into his back pocket and winking at him from the DJ booth when Louis found them. He’d been late to the airport, made them miss their flight and Louis had spent a quarter of his measly holiday spending money so they could get the next flight. Zayn had said simply, ‘ _well I freaked out about the idea of spending four days just you and me’_ like that was fine, was normal, was something that Louis should have known would happen.

Even though by then Zayn had moved in upstairs, even though by then they had been fucking for nearly a year. Even though by then they’d mounted numerous club nights together, gone home to Bradford via fucking Doncaster together.

 

Zayn who spent hours with Louis between his legs, edging him because that’s what he liked best, Louis licking Zayn’s cock, fingers just toying with the edge of his rim, licking under his balls, and sucking them while working his dick over until he was twitching, so close to coming, but he’d push Louis away, his hand tight around his dick squeezing the base knuckles white and brows furrowed in pain.

Then afterwards he’d be lighting up the blunt, taking a hit and making Louis climb his body to have the smoke breathed into his mouth.

 

Louis turns over, punches his pillow into shape. Everything he got from Zayn had been second hand and an afterthought. He jabs angrily at his laptop space bar. He has some links, he doesn’t even need to put them in a secret folder in his bookmarks anymore, he just clicks on the one with the eggplant emoji and goes to the first one, shoves his hand down his pants while skipping forward in the video, he doesn’t need the start, just needs to watch the taller guy hold the shorter guy up against the wall have some uncomfortable but realistic wall sex before the shorter guy sinks down and sucks the other guy off. He just needs to come so he can sleep. Sleep.

 

When he’s done he rolls over while pulling his pants down with his feet. Using them to clean up his stomach and hand and pubes and he wonders if maybe he shouldn’t get off to the idea of having someone come on his face, maybe he should want something more participatory.

 

But then, that’s because he allowed himself to think about Zayn, and just because sex between them had been what it was, even Louis knows, if he was to kneel in front of some man, get to feel him heavy on his tongue and Louis' jaw sore from sucking his cock; even if then if Louis pulled off and got this faceless person towering over him to come on his face, it would still be being used less then what had happened between him and Zayn.

 

He has to get up and go to the bathroom, dick cupped in his hands and laughter floating up from the sitting room below. He can make out Harry and Niall and so that other sound must be Grimshaw and he leaves the bathroom door open as he pisses and washes his hands, looks at himself in the mirror while an odd barking laugh rings out.

He looks a bit skinny. Bags under his eyes and his cheeks a little too sunken, his bones seem stark and his skin pale. Well why would he have a tan. He’s given so many days to him. Not that he knew, or benefited, just Louis gave them to him. He leans over, pushes his nose down to look at the pores on the side of his nostril. He gave so much up to him and he never noticed.

Louis rubs his hand over his beard. Takes one more look in the mirror and goes to back to his room, climbs into a ratty pair of joggers and then into bed.

 

He wakes up a few hours later. He’s too hot because Harry is in his bed, all wrapped around him, Harry’s arm heavy and pinning him up against his body. Louis untangles himself and gets up to slide the window open.

“Come back Lou,” Harry says into the pillow. Louis looks at him for a moment.  There’s always a strange resignation that he can’t take it that step further with Harry. Not that he thinks Harry wants that.

He's got lovely hair, all flopped out on Louis' spare pillow.

But.

 

It's very Harry to have just come up here, slide into the bed. It's probably the third time he's done it so far since uni started, so that's on average at least once a week that Harry has been worried enough about Louis to actually want to hug him better. He doesn't try to talk about it with him during the day, after that first night they haven't spoken about it but Harry knows. Something clutches at his heart a little, and his face feels a little hot. He realises they probably all know. How he's broken, it's not like he hid it, he just hid.

He gets back in under the comforter, lies on his back and Harry puts his heavy hairy head on his chest, a careless caring arm over his stomach. And Louis is weighed down so he can’t escape from sleep.

 

**—…—**

 

**November**

 

Aimee, Ian and Elgar come to visit when Nick's been in Bournemouth just over a month. It's not been a great month, and it’s somehow felt very long and also it feels like he’s only been there a moment. He doesn't ask them to come. But, they do. They bring the Ada and that's nice. That's right proper fucking lovely really.

 

“I felt like a weekend at the seaside!” Aimee exclaims, Ada in one arm and a can of gin and tonic in her hand.

Nick looks at the grey sea meeting the grey sky.

“How long before it rains do you think?” he replies flatly. They’ve just walked down a quite tedious zig-zag path from the hotel they are all staying at. It looks over the sea and Aimee picked it for the wall paper in the dining room which has bright pink heart shaped flower motif. When Nick arrived at the hotel to meet up with them all Elgar immediately dragged him in there and made him pose for and take a million selfies and pictures of him in front of the thing, much to the bemusement of the retires enjoying a bit of morning tea.

They get in a good hour, which is more than Nick had thought. He manages to bury a good portion of Ian’s legs under the sand because he and Aimee promptly fall asleep as soon as they lie down, and Elgar fashions a little chair out of packed sand for Ada and they sit her up and take some good pictures of her squinting cutely under her little floppy hat in the glare.

“You look a bit thin Nick,” Elgar says.

“Well, I was going to take ‘my top off get in a sunbake in this lovely weather in all but now I won’t.” Nick frowns, half serious half joking.

“You okay though? Doing alright?”

“I’m fine.”

“It’s too far from London to Bournemouth. I want to check in on you more. Come for nights at your club.”

Nick starts proper laughing, “No you bloody don’t! _I_ don’t want to have nights out at that place, lord!”

“Is it that bad?”

“It’s horrid.”

“So come back, there’s got to be work in London.”

Nick is trickling a gentle stream of soft sand onto Ada’s leg, she’s giggling. “I can’t I don’t...” He doesn’t really know how to explain it. He’s just not ready for London. Not ready to see everyone, to explain everything, to start building a proper life back at home without Matías.

“Well,” Elgar says, leaning over and putting a warm heavy hand on Nick’s bare shin, “If you’re going to play pretend by the seaside you might as well put your heart in it a little.”

Nick looks at him for a hint of mockery. There is none. Just plump lips in a sympathetic smile, a backwards cap and some fancy sunnies that Nick’s going to try his hardest to steal before they all go back to London. Nick laughs, wishes he didn’t, he sounds nervous.

Elgar squeezes his leg, “I’m going over there, have a quick smoke away from the baby, you should wake them up, it’s going to rain.”

It does, and the rain wakes Aimee and Ian up and then it’s a bit of frantic towel and bucket and spade collection and a trek back up the stupid zig zag pathway because the funicular is shut for winter, and by the time they have dumped all the stuff back at the hotel Nick sort of needs to go in and unlock the club so the others can come by for set up.

When he mentions this of course his friends want to come down too. Of course.

Louis does have a key, but Nick’s taken it on himself to turn up to unlock, it’s not like he has anywhere else to be and Louis is very superior about it all if Nick isn’t there and well, basically Nick is now dragging his visiting friends into is odd passive aggressive pissing contest he’s having with his bar manager.

They decide to drive there in the rental car, which is good as it’s still raining and baby-Ada has a lot of things. Nick sits in the back with the little tub shaped baby car seat and Aimee.

“What’s your place like Nick?” She asks.

“Brown, depressing, in Poole.”

“The club not your flat.”

“Oh.” Nick hangs onto the little hand rail stuck off the roof as Elgar misses the turn off onto Holdenhurst Road and sets them on course for the A338, "Well it’s pink and depressing and in Bournemouth.”

“Nick, stop it.” She slaps his leg gently, “What sort of nights do you have, what are your staff like? Ohh! After I put Ada down I’m going to sneak out and DJ a set? Would your regulars mind?” She sounds excited.

Nick sighs, “Elgar you’ll have to go all the way around this roundabout we have to go back, and no Aimee, no one will mind, it’s basically me, DJ Payno.”

“Who!” Ian exclaims, “Is that real?”

Nick laughs, “No not left Elgar, you needed to swing around to the right!” Yeah, DJ Big Payno.”

“You don’t put that on the posters?” Aimee’s laughing too. Elgar is swearing.

“Not in front of the baby.” Ian slaps Elgar’s hand which is on the gear stick. Got a bit slap happy since they had the baby these two.

“There’s another roundabout up here you’ll have to turn back around.” As they swing around the roundabout a scooter is waiting to enter it from the left, the rider holding his hands up and yelling something, Nick thinks maybe Elgar has the wrong indicator light on and he sees a taller guy leaning over the rider’s shoulder. It’s Louis and Harry. Of course it is, they are right by their place.

“Shit.” Nick sighs.

“Not in front of the baby!” Aimee slaps his leg a bit harder this time.

“Do you know them Grimmy?” Ian asks from the front, he’s looking in the rear vision mirror so they must be following them.

Which also makes sense, they’ll be on their way into work. Louis still showing up earlier than he needs to. Always seems to have some job or project that he’s doing around the club that he never fails to make Nick feel stupid for not realising it needed doing, or inept, or guilty or just generally annoyed. If Louis had mentioned any of the issues to Nick he would have sorted it out, but he just gets on and does stuff and then raises his eyebrows and looks at Nick as if he’s an imposition for having the audacity for asking why his bar manager is up a ladder fixing ceiling tiles or what he’s doing re-caulking the sink surrounds in the bar.

“Yeah that’s ‘m bar manager and Harry.”

“Ohh Ha- _rry._ ” Aimee is gleeful. She twists around in her seat, it’s a bit squashy because of the baby car cradle thing, and she’s basically sitting on Nick now. They are back at the intersection for the main road now, another lane beside them and Louis pulls up next to them.

“Open the window Elgar!” Aimee’s voice is very loud in his ear as she leans across him. “Hi Nick’s friends!” She calls out as Elgar slides the windows down, he’s leaning out too. Literally looking Louis up and down.

Harry is bending over to see in the car, “Hi Grim, thought it was you as you went by, ohh you’ve got a baby.”

“You’re in the wrong lane Grimshaw,” Louis cuts in curtly over the top of Harry’s cooing, “as shite at directions as you are at all else hey?”

“He is shit at directions!” Elgar agrees emphatically and too quickly for someone who drives like he’s never been near a roundabout before.

Before Nick can defend himself Louis calls out, “Hold on Harry!” And the lights change and scooter moves forward.

It’s a blessing really. Aimee is poking him quite hard in the thigh with her elbow as she leans over him to look at Harry.

Nick hears a sudden ominous clicking from the front, he squeals, “Elgar, no! Turn off your indicator we go straight through now, just follow the scooter for fucks sake!”

“Not in front of the baby!” Ian and Aimee call out at the same time, Ian turning in his seat to slap at Nick’s knee.

 

When they get to the lane at the back of Raspberries and Elgar does about a six point turn before managing to crookedly park behind the big bin. Harry’s fluffing up his hair from the helmet, and as if he’s met them before is ready with hugs hello for Ian, Aimee, and Elgar as they get out if the car. He’s introducing Louis and got the boot open and has pulled out the pushchair before Nick has even picked up his bag from the foot-well.

Nick’s distracted, he’s watching Louis. Louis is being odd. He’s left his helmet on the seat of his scooter and is smiling at Nick’s friends, shaking hands and accepting a compliment from Elgar about his zip up jacket thing. Windcheater. It’s very strange.

Nick finally finds his keys and holds the door open while they all squeeze past, Harry pauses for a moment and smacks a kiss to his cheek as he goes past and Aimee who follows gives him a very pointed look.

Louis is leading the way and he takes them up the stairs and through the little hallway past the office and the stockroom, some strange mix of Richard Attenborough and a ‘homes of the stars’ tour guide.

“Up these stairs that are held up by the bones of long forgotten alcopop bottles, sacrificed on the altar of a freshies first ill-advised hook-up you have the fabled Raspberries store room on your left. If you’re quiet enough you may be able to hear the whispering fumes of our cheap vodka conspiring against humanity in general."

Elgar is laughing, Aimee saying something about how she could really enjoy a WDK and Harry's laughing in that too-loud way that he always does whenever Louis or him make a joke. Nick loves it when Harry laughs like that at something he's said, hates it when he does at something Louis has said.

"Next along you'll see the dingy natural habitat of overgrown third rate night-club managers, Grimshaw’s den of invoices and a moodboard for two for one drink slogans.”

“Oy don’t call Raspberries third-rate.” Nick calls out over their heads, trying to join in.

“Wasn’t Nick, was calling you third rate there.” Louis answers back.

Elgar laughs more.

“What’s this one?” Aimee pokes her head in the next room, “Ohh Lockers, and a sofa from 1994, staffroom, is it? A hotbed of gossip and intrigue is it?” She goes in and picks up a copy of Heat that is sitting on the broken old speaker that’s tipped over to act as a sort of coffee table.

Louis makes a sort of humph as he follows her in and sets his helmet down, taking Harry’s from Elgar who’s carried that up, Harry carrying what surely is every baby related accessory Ian and Aimee own.

Aimee’s holding open the magazine showing off a picture of what looks like Richie Neville shirtless and Nick’s a bit confused as she says, “We used to make out all the time in the staff room when I tended bar, more hook-ups in there than on the dance floor.”

Harry drops the pram on his feet, and as he swears softly and bends over quickly to pick that up. The baby bag that he had hanging off his shoulder swings down and starts falling as well, but Nick doesn’t move to help him for a moment, he’s distracted. He’s the only one left stood in the hall still, and he’s looking over Harry’s shoulder straight at Louis who’s swallowing and looking at Harry in a very odd way. Just a flash of something hard and bitter. He never looks at Harry like that. Harry seems to have noticed as well, he’s looking up at Louis from where he’s crouching now stuffing some brightly coloured fluffy bug toy back into the baby bag.

Aimee seems to have noticed that the tour has ground to a halt. Louis is silent where he’d been taking up all the space before he’s now shucking off his jacket and being very absorbed in turning towards his locker. It’s suddenly oddly awkward.

“Don’t know what you making out with Ritchie Neville has to do with anything Aimee,” Elgar says with a rather piercing look at Nick and then a very unsubtle nod at Louis. Nick has no idea what is going on. Ian and Ada seem to have kept on going because his voice rings out then from the stockroom.

“Aimee love, I’ve found you all the WKD’s you could ever dream of!”

“Oohh blue ones?” She beams and nimbly skips past Elgar, “Leave that pushchair down there pet, it’s fine, Elgar grab the bag, come on, I want to see the DJ booth!” And she’s heading off in the direction of Ian’s voice, who’s still calling out the names of the various horrid cheap alcopops and cider that sit in the stockroom.

Elgar picks up the baby bag and follows her and Nick still can’t think what the hell to say to break the odd tension between Harry and Louis so he just comes out with a very jaunty sounding, “Right-o!” As if he’s suddenly his posh mate Jack, and does the same.

 

Harry comes into the main floor of the club very shortly, he’s a little pale and for a moment Nick thinks his eyes seem wet, but he’s got that big-eyed thing going on at the best of times, so it’s hard to tell. He’s very nice is young Harry, handsome as hell and friendly from the word go. Nick can admit he’s lonely and sad and Harry is the best thing about Bournemouth really. He feeds Nick dinner and always answers his texts, watches GBBO with him and doesn’t mind if Nick sleeps over. Jesus he and Nick put together a very cheap pine double-bed frame which Harry let Nick buy him due to the fact that both of them did not fit in Harry’s single. They don’t fit in the double either, and it doesn’t really fit in Harry’s little room, he now has his clothes rack on the landing outside. But it’s better than the single and it’s worth it because Nick sleeps over a lot. But it’s not what Elgar and Aimee seem to be implying at every chance they get.

Him and Harry are just mates. And it’s nice at Harry’s. It’s noisy with the other boys and always some others around, Liam’s girlfriend and her friends, Niall seems to know every person who’s ever so much as thought about smelling the air from Dublin Bay and there’s almost always a guitar being strummed and an Irish voice laughing or singing somewhere around. And there’s Louis of course. He’s funny in a group, interested and chatty and waving his hands around and scratching at the end of his nose with just a finger. Every movement distractingly quick. Nick often finds himself watching him, he tries not to get caught doing it because then Louis tends to stop moving, stop talking if he knows that Nick’s watching. If they get left alone he’s always the first to get up. He’s not rude. But in the way that he is forthcoming and warm and even gentle with other people, with Nick it's nothing more than a blunt obligation and well, when it comes to the club, well actually then Louis is pretty rude. Pretty dismissive towards Nick and defensive and basically an annoying shit.

 

Harry’s flipped on a few more lights and is heading over to Aimee who’s exclaiming about the colour of the walls, she’s going to dye her hair the same. She gets Harry to take a picture of her holding her pony-tail up against the wall.

Ian immediately hands baby-Ava to Elgar and lays down on one of the built-in banquette seats. His legs hang over the edge and he is using a bib as an eye-mask. Nick would tell him not to but the cleaners are great, utterly thourgh middle aged ladies who clean the place spic and span. They are lovely as well. Leave Nick baked goods and let him call them saucy names when he sees them. In fact Nick likes everyone who works at Raspberries, and they seem to like him, it’s just still Louis. All prickly and difficult and superior and annoying.

Aimee hops up behind the decks and starts flipping everything on, a random pulse of blue light flashes out across the room, bounces off the far wall and flips into purple and baby starts laughing, Harry’s smiling and skipping across the dance floor to Elgar and his little bundle and it’s nice, the laughing and the fun of it.

“Be back in a moment, I’ll bring you in my laptop Aims,” he says, turning and heading towards the back. He’s even got a few records back there that he’s started picking up from the net and a little record shop on Ashley Road.  He’ll bring it all out and let Aimee play while they do prep he thinks, smiling at the thought of Aimee actually playing Raspberries proper, for the eighty or so punters they get in for cheap drinks before they all move on to actually dance elsewhere.

Raspberries seems good for whatever pre-loading is when uni students do it out rather than in, and not much more. They come for about an hour and are mostly all gone by half after midnight, one am. The ones who stay after that probably can’t get in elsewhere, and while they do abide by responsible service guidelines, it’s one thing to cut a person off and another if they are just happily drunk and giving Nick someone to play Fade to.

 

Louis is still in the break room when he goes by. He’s got a bin beside him and he’s pulling stuff out of one of the lockers and throwing into the bin pretty violently. Nick pauses in the doorway and takes a breath. Watches as Louis flicks angrily through a notebook, then letting out some sort of brittle laugh he lets that drop as well.

“Are, um, are you ok Louis?” Nick asks. Louis’ head shoots up, his eyes very blue and a bit wet as well. Has he been crying? Nick walks in the room a couple of steps.

“Just cleaning out some old staff member's stuff.” Louis’ mouth is flat and his hands still above the bin, holding the notebook.

“Right.” Nick looks behind Louis, into the locker, he can see a few shirts hanging up, the old uniform Majestic rolled out at some point on their path to receivership.

“Fuck it.” Louis lets the notebook fall down and shuts the door behind him gently. “If you hire anyone else clean that out before they start hey?” And he starts to walk past Nick.

Nick reaches out on instinct, his hand catching Louis’ upper arm all soft and wrapped up in a hoodie, and Louis turns to look at him very suddenly again. His eyes are definitely red.

“Let me go Nick,” he says, but it’s not a ‘get your hands off me how dare you touch me’ there's a pleading there, and acknowledgment that something is happening and Louis is sad.

“Okay.” Nick says a little dumbly.  Louis keeps going as Nick calls out, “If you ever needed to talk or whatever...” but Louis has gone.

Nick looks in the locker of course. ‘Zayn’ is stitched on the breast of all three of the shirts in there, the old Sonic branded uniform. There’s an accounting textbook and a battered copy of a travel guide for the US. Nick puts it in the bin, hesitates but then pulls the notebook out, flips through it. Lists, lists of money, lists of places to visit, some maybe lyrics. The start of a letter to someone’s parents, to Zayn’s parents he guesses. The next page has another list, ‘Last Week’ one of the things to do is ‘tell Louis.’ It’s not crossed off. The other items have marks, little amendments, a time under ‘appointment for last travel shots,’ but there’s nothing next to ‘tell Louis.’

Nick sweeps everything in the locker into the bin; the shirts and the books and a hairbrush and a can of deodorant. Then he ties up the bag and runs down to the big bin in the laneway. He’s about to swing it in there, and then he stops. Unpicks the little tied plastic ends and has a quick check. It’s a fresh liner, nothing else in there just stuff from this locker. It’s not his to throw away. He sighs deeply and ties it back up, goes back inside and takes it up to his little office with the damp ceiling patch. Writes Zayn in black marker on the bag. The ink jumping over bits of the crinkled plastic. Then he puts it in the corner behind an old metal filing cabinet.

 

When he gets back out to the main room Aimee has found some music from somewhere, looks like Louis’ laptop from the stickers on the back, Harry is over at the bar, he’s mixing something and he’s got a tray of lemons next to him so he must be starting prep. Ian’s still passed out on the banquet and Elgar is sitting on the one across from him, phone in hand as he videos Louis and baby Ada. Louis is on all fours, an exaggerated smile on his face as he lunges across the floor, grabbing at where the next tile lights up, Ada giggling delightedly as Louis yells the colour out and falls dramatically. Nick has no idea what the game is meant to be, and he had made one sweeping rule when he took over which was that the light up floor was not to be lit up, he hates it. But Ada is happy, and she’s adorable. And as Ada shrikes in excitement when a tile lights up very close to her and Louis lunges forward, rolling on his back and then picking her up, holding her above his head, he’s happy too. He’s proper laughing.

Nick walks around the outside of the tiles and gives his laptop to Aimee silently then goes back to Harry at the bar.

“He’s good with the baby.” Nick observes a little awkwardly. He glances at Harry’s hands, deftly cutting a slice of lemon into a decorative little unfurled row of triangle shaped segments, but his eyes are drawn back to the dance floor. He can’t stop watching Louis and Ada playing. His smile is very bright and very real.

“He’s got a heap of sisters, five of them now, and baby brother.” Harry finishes putting another twist of lemon peel in the glass of what Nick thinks must be WDK, it’s the same colour as Windolene.

Louis lets out a strange roar, seems to be pretending to crawl chase baby-Ada across the floor now.

“And he’s a kid himself of course.” Harry smiles up him, rolling his eyes a little like that’s a thing everyone knows, that Louis is a bit of a kid. But Nick doesn’t . Nick’s seen him being sarcastic and witty with others, and quiet and sullen with him, but never like this.

“That’s for Aimee and this one’s for Elgar, I’m prepping the lemons and limes, um, and then I have to head out to Tesco and get a few odds and ends, is there petty cash?” Harry continues and Nick has to sort of shake it all off, stop thinking about this new enigmatic side of Louis.

He pulls his wallet out of his pocket, “Take the green coloured card, that’s the company one and get receipts. You’re a star Haz.” He smiles back, a soft smile, that makes Harry look at him a little questioningly but Nick picks up the drinks and walks over to the DJ booth.

Having delivered Aimee’s horrid drink to her he goes over and sits on the edge of the banquet seat in the booth next to Elgar, both of them sitting sideways facing out to the dance floor.

“What do you think?” Nick asks softly.

“That Louis there has a nice arse. Good taste in hoodies too.” Elgar says, looking at his phone but Nick can see he’s smiling

“Elgar!”

“Don’t be all pretend proper!” Elgar protests in a whisper, “granny Grimshaw never thought I’d see the day! I know he’s playing with a kid ‘n all, but you can’t help but notice.” He angles his phone so Nick can look down at the screen which is playing a video which does start focused on Ada but Louis sort of crawls into shot and yeah, it is a very nice arse. And yeah, Nick has noticed before.

“I think you need to get rid of those bar seats,” Elgar says nodding over the modern stools which Nick hates, “and that floor, it’s got a great retro kitsch aesthetic but can people properly dance on that?”

“It’s actually pretty new that is, they put it in before the receivership, not sure what they were thinking.” Nick sips at Elgar’s drink which he’s still holding, “Uhh, yuck. Rum and coke?” He passes it to him.

The music stops as Aimee unplugs one laptop.

“Change the seats, repaint, I don’t know, what acts do you have?”

Louis looks over at them sharply, he’s rolling a ball back and forth with Ada now, contents of the massive baby bag starting to spread across the various tiles of the floor.

Harry is looking up from his work on the bench, the room isn’t big and everyone must have heard Elgar, “Louis show him your plan!” He calls out from behind the bar.

Louis looks at Harry and shushes him urgently

“Do you have a plan Louis.” Elgar asks, “for a bit of a revamp?”

“He’s got a whole business plan, redo the inside, change what we do everything, what our licences is, when we open, there’s stages and reno work and it’s brilliant,” Harry rushes out.

Louis’ still facing towards Harry, so Nick can only see his back, his set shoulders, and he goes as far as to actually hold his palm up to the ceiling as if gesturing _what the fuck_ at Harry.

Nick stays still, feels like maybe he really shouldn’t say anything for once, he really wants to know what Louis planned.

“Well you’d all know the place better than anyone, have you shown Nick?” Elgar pushes a little further, his voice gentle and calm. Nick wonders if he’ll even have even a little of Elgar’s nuance. He once thought he was good at people, but now he thinks maybe people were just good for him. He operates better with others around so he does what he can to keep them there.

Which. Well. He’s not good at that.

“The floor!” Harry calls out in what Nick thinks is a nonsensical way, “That’s the first thing isn’t it Lou? Lay floorboards and repaint apart from the entry wall and the back of the bar oh and then the front...”

“Jesus Harry, shut up alright!” Louis says sharply and turns back to Ada who’s crawled up to him and is banging the little ball on his upper arm, “Sorry poppet got distracted by old big-mouth didn’t I?"

Nick is watching him, looking towards Harry who doesn’t look upset at being snapped at, he’s throwing something in his mouth and chewing it with what looks like a satisfied expression on his face and he’s looking right at Nick.

“Actually Louis, I should give her a feed.” Aimee has put on some Florence and the Machine and hopped down from the booth. “Before you look at me like that Elgar I didn’t actually drink any of that beautifully presented WKD, just instagrammed it and breathed in the alluring scent of fake.” She’s scooped up Ada and stops to drop a kiss on her nose. “What is blue flavour baby-Ada?” she says in a silly voice.

“Blueberry,” Harry calls out.

“Raspberry I think,” Nick says, at the same time Louis does. They look at each other, Nick really doesn’t know why he’s so nervous. “I’d like to lay them,” he says quickly.

"Sure you would Nick," Aimee grins, she’s found a seat in the last built-in table and is sorting Ada out for a feed.

Elgar mutters “Cheeky.” But Nick doesn’t joke with them, smiles in an absent way but he’s watching Louis as he looks down at the flashing floor. He seems to pause for a long time, lashes against cheeks. Nick really needs to stop sort-of checking him out he thinks.

Then Louis swallows, looks up and throws the ball towards him, Nick shoots a hand out and catches it. Thank god.

“We should do that then.” Louis presses his lips together, seems uncomfortable, his eyes flicker up to look at Nick.

“Ok,” Nick says lightly, feels his palm a little sweaty against the plastic of the ball, “and I proper would love to hear what your plan was.”

“I did a case study for uni, not even sure where any of the paperwork is now, I’d have to dig out the USB,” he sighs, “I mean it was a bit daft, bit too grand a plan."

Elgar laughs a little, “The services on the M3 would be grander than this though.”

“Aye they got a nice bridge the M3 services.” Nick pushes at Elgar’s shoulder.

“A fine erect-ment.” Elgar agrees seriously. Harry barks out his shout-laugh, he’s walking over with a pile of different sized papers in his hands and a glass of water, “This is the floor quotes, and I think the plans for the seating are in there too, got them from your locker, don’t look at me like that Lou.” He puts the water down in front of Aimee. “Now, I’m off to Tesco, want to come with me Elgar?”

Elgar looks at Louis scowling on the floor holding the rolled tube paper and the manilla folder like they just insulted his Ma, and then up at Harry then at Nick.

“I sort of want to stay and watch these two, but how can I refuse an offer to go to Tesco’s, want me to drive?”

Harry blanches. “Do you drive like you park? We can walk, it’s not far.”

“The rum might have improved me?” Elgar gives his half-drunk glass to Nick and with a wink he’s following Harry. Louis picks himself up and comes to sit on the other side of the table in Nick’s banquet. He puts the papers down carefully.

“Get your laptop maybe, we can check your refurbishment budget, but I’ve got to warn you, if you really want to do it, well, we’ll probably have to do the way I usually got things done around here.”

“Which is?”

Louis cocks his head, “Well you know how I taught ‘meself to cement in a loo?”

Nick nods, gulps at Elgar’s drink.

Louis smiles properly, “How are you at a bit of DIY yourself Nick?”

 

In the end they don’t have that long to talk about it. There’s a message on Nick’s phone and the driver was there with kegs. As Louis and Nick roll them in Nick finally asks Louis why they had, mixed in with the rocket-fuel vodka and the strongest sales for WKD in the South of England post 2010, two very decent locally brewed ales on tap.

“Well, it was part of the plan I guess, me and...” he stops then, shakes his arm out from where he’d just been moving the keg into an upright stand, moves his wrist slowly as if he’s stretching his forearm muscle. Nick watches his fingers as they flex, looks at the band of tattoo around his wrist, somehow it seems to make it look smaller to Nick. It’s a bit obtrusive almost. But Nick thinks Louis doesn’t take all of his tattoos all that seriously and he likes that. He understands that.

“Well there’d been some plans and we thought we’d get some good stuff on tap and the old Bar Manager sorted it out. They do sell,” he adds on defensively as Nick is still stood there silent staring at Louis’ now still hand and wrist. Because Nick is an idiot.

“They do, they’re very nice. I don’t even like beer, ale, and I love ‘em both,” he agrees quickly. “You’ll have to go through all that stuff with me. I do really want to see your plans and that Lou.”

Louis looks at him eyebrow raised, slight smirk.

“Louis.” Nick corrects.

Elgar is in the doorway all of a sudden, might have been there a while, he has drops of rain on his windcheater and is grinning at them. “Ohh tension you two! Love it! Harry’s having us over for our tea tomorrow and Great British Bake-Off so you can chat about it all then, come on Nick, Ian’s awake and Aimee wants to put Ada down proper. Are you right to leave these lot at it for a bit?”

And Nick is, even though it’s Saturday and it’s their busiest night, that doesn’t actually mean that much, and he’ll just come back to do his set a little later.

“Right, okay, sounds good. Would that be alright Louis?”

“Yup.” Louis answers expressionless, his eyes flicking back to Nick from where he’d been looking at Elgar. Nick feels a bit funny at that. Not sure why.

Nick gives Louis an odd salute thing, two fingers off his forehead and then slaps both his hands on his thighs and says, “Catch you later then.” And feeling himself start to blush turns around and pushes Elgar out of the doorway in front of him.

“Did you just salute him?” Elgar starts straight away as the go up the hall, he’s delighted, but thank god at least trying to whisper. “Do you want Louis to be the general in charge of your pants, you do don’t you, you think he’s fit, Aimee thinks it’s Harry but it’s not is it, you love Louis, you want Louis to look at your thighs, that’s why you slapped yourself, you want Louis to order around your thi...!” Nick reaches round and covers Elgar’s mouth forcibly with his hand as he marches them back into the main room proper.

“Shut the fuck up Elgar!” Nick hisses into his ear, “and maybe imessage me that video of baby-Ada and Louis later on.”

 

Sunday evening Harry cooks a roast. Well Harry, Liam’s girlfriend, Niall and Ian cook a roast.

He’d spent the morning with his friends. Ian flying a kite despite the fact it was freezing bloody cold and then they’d gone back to the heart-wallpaper restaurant at the hotel for scones and such and then Elgar and him had had a nice big walk with the baby while Aimee and Ian slept which was according to Aimee ‘all they had wanted more than anything ever.’

And after that all Nick had just felt a little bit sweaty or something, and despite Elgar saying he could shower in his room at the hotel, Nick had wanted to go home and get changed. Moisturise.

Aimee and Louis and Elgar are sitting around the coffee table when he gets there a bit before six. He’s brought two six-packs of Peroni, a bunch of flowers and a packet of after dinner mints in the pocket of his coat, and under that Nick is in a big jumper, fuzzy and green, it feels right. Cosy.

Elgar looks up and smiles in a slow way, “Hello fancy.”

“I haven’t worn this in three years you know.” Nick says as he bends down to kiss Aimee’s head on his way over to the kitchen, “No need in Spain.”

Louis makes some sort of disapproving noise. A scoff maybe. Nick looks at him but he’s sipping a beer and not looking at Nick.

Liam decides the flowers are for him and puts them in a vase and spends a long time clearing a space for them on the crowded ancient sideboard that sits behind the end of the dining table. Niall gets in about ten minutes after Nick had, with a large chocolate birthday cake from Asda and two bottles of awful sparkling wine.

Nick helps. He helps clear off the big dining table that’s covered in some of the boys’ various coursework but also just a lot of junk.  He helps set the table, he puts on a playlist, plugging his phone into the little speaker jack when Harry asks him to and he fetches more drinks for people. Baby-Ada wakes up and Nick gets taught how to heat up a pumped bottle of milk and about sterilized bottle nipples and Elgar then tells three stories about Nick’s nipples, one of which ends in how Nick’s nipples apparently caused Liverpool once to lose a match to Everton. At the end he actually sounds quite cross which is pretty unusual for Elgar, apart from when he’s talking about Liverpool. And he has started jabbing at Nick’s thigh a lot through the hole in his jeans.

Louis is sitting on the floor, back to the TV and facing towards Ian and Elgar who are sat on the sofa, Nick is perched on an arm of it, next to Elgar, in poking distance.

“Are you stoned Elgar?” Nick asks finally.

Harry is saying something to Liam’s girlfriend about how long the meat needs to rest for and Ian is holding Ada up against his shoulder trying to burp her and Louis keeps looking and then looking away from things, people’s faces, and when Nick says this he finally looks straight at Elgar and grins.

“Ahh, busted by the boss.” And the way he smiles at Elgar is such a nice full smile, he looks proper joyous and entertained, his eyes crinkle into little moon shapes and yeah, Nick realises now that he’s high, but something is a bit bitter about that. Something sits heavy in his stomach as Elgar starts laughing back at Louis.

“I thought we were going to talk about your amazing plans for the club Louis,” Nick says, sounds odd. A bit too tense to his own ears.

“Grampa Grimshaw.” Elgar smirks and pokes his leg again.

Louis has been leaning back on his hands, his t-shirt pulled across his slim chest and his legs crossed almost under the coffee table. He sits up now, face shuttered compared to when he was looking at Elgar. He drops a little tin on the table.

“I’m going ‘t get a jumper. I’m chilly.  There’s lots in there if you want you’re welcome and after dinner ‘n all I’ll show you my stuff.” And he’s up and out of the room before Nick can reply.

Niall swoops in and picks up the tin, “Come on, Sunday tradition, get a bit stoned, Harry provides the munchies in form of a family dinner, wholesome for all.”

Nick follows him outside.

 

Dinner is nice. The food would be great even if he didn’t have a slight case of the munchies. He’s sat at the end with Liam and Harry and Aimee and Niall. He spends a lot of the dinner watching Louis laughing with Elgar and Ian and Liam’s girlfriend. Who Nick doesn’t mean not to know the name of, just he missed it when they were introduced and it’s been too long now to ever ask and Liam calls her terrible pet names only and somehow so does Harry and the other boys now he thinks of it.

Well they call her one name particular.

“Honey!” He blurts out suddenly, fork with a brussels sprout on the end poised on it’s way to his mouth.

Liam’s girlfriend stops drinking her wine and looks at him with a tilted head.  So does Elgar who is next to her, and Louis who’s next to him, at the head of the table.

“That’s your...” silence hangs, “name.” Nick finishes as a mutter and stuffs the vegetable in his mouth.

He keeps his head down then, there’s not much recovery from that. Well he keeps his head down but also looks at Louis and Elgar basically whispering to each other all night, Elgar leaning into Louis’ neck and it’s too close Nick thinks. But he’s not sure why. And he thinks he’s jealous of Louis, because Elgar is a person to Nick. A maybe. A bright spark who is fun and kind and has amazing sneakers and sunglasses and who gives a shit about Nick and makes Nick feel good about himself in different ways and Nick thinks a lot of him. He’s very fit.

Nick shouldn’t like watching other fit men flirting with his fit men. Except Elgar isn't his. And Louis is fit and that’s it isn’t it. He has to admit it properly. He’s bloody fit. A fit git.

Nick knocks back his beer, swallowing and watching Louis, who looks up from where he’s talking to Ian now and settles his eyes on Nick like he knew Nick was looking.

He’s so happy to talk to all of Nick’s mates but not to Nick. And everyone is happy to talk to Nick. Liam and Niall and Liam’s girlfriend. Honey! Honey and him are proper mates, they had a great chat about Corrie the other day.

Nick stabs his last bit of meat a bit too hard and his cutlery makes a scratching noise on the plate.

Niall is in charge of cleaning up, self nominated and very careful about it all. Elgar helps, Elgar and Honey. Harry makes tea. Ian and Aimee take the rental car and baby-Ada back to the hotel and Nick helps them outside with all the stuff.

“Home before dessert.”

“It’s the sea air, tires me right out.” Ian jokes. Then yawns right in Nick’s face.

Aimee kisses him on the cheek, “Louis’ got some great ideas, can’t wait to hear what you think, I think that place could work you know.”

And for fucks sake, how does Aimee know Louis’ plans and Nick doesn’t. He goes back inside after some calming breaths, Harry’s putting out the birthday cake and letting people take it to have in front of the TV, but at the other end of the table is Louis, opening up his battered old Mac and rolling out what looks like a proper draftsman’s plan. Nick feels nervous. Why does he always feel nervous.

“Going to nip to the loo.” He says, and slaps his thighs.

He’s got to stop doing that.

 

When Nick gets back. Liam, Honey and the vase of flowers have vanished, probably out back to Liam’s unit and Elgar, Niall and Harry are an attractive if odd trio squashed on the floral patterned sofa together in front of the telly. Big slices of birthday cake on their laps.

Nick hesitates near the edge of the table, taps his hand on the back of one of the chairs.

“Sit down Nick, your tea will be right cold now.” Louis says looking up at him for a moment and then tipping his head to the seat next to him. So Nick does what he’s told.

Straight away his eyes are drawn to the plans, proper to-scale drawing of the club, but in colour and over on the side of the large sheet of paper is a key of sorts, small detailed sketches of what the seating or stools or other items of furniture would look like, paint swatches, a drawing of a removable platform to be added where the stage is.

Interesting. They don’t have a stage.

Nick moves back to the plan. The built in seating is removed, the dance floor covered in boards right up to the wall and where the DJ booth is has been extended, seems to be a platform stage, there are some sofas positioned around the outside of the dance floor and over where the strange empty open space is between the door and the bar, where at the moment is just an empty expanse of aqua and gold carpet  is one long built in soft sofa like thing, seems to be in deep gray blue velvet according to the key. There are a few small tables dotted along the long built in and small rounded single armless chairs facing the sofa. It’s seating but more relaxed, retro but modern. And that colour would look amazing against the fuchsia wall.

Louis has indicated he’d repaint most of the space, but there are still a few bits of the pink left, which Nick has to say he’d pictured doing himself. The whole thing looks more bar than club. The dance floor has the previously discussed floorboards on it, there are still high tables near the bar, but with some nice low backed wooden seated bar stools, metal legs. The toilets have been swapped, so the women’s is where the men’s is now. This opens up more space so the women can have more cubicles and then the sinks and mirrors are just a communal space in the centre. It makes a lot of sense and Nick wants to do it straight away.

“More cementing in toilets hey.” He jokes and taps the plan.

“Yeah.” Louis sounds funny, a little shaky, Nick looks at him. He’s biting his lip and watching him anxiously.

“Louis this is all great, I love this set up, you obviously had a scene you were going for here, I like how you have co-opted this space from the shop at the front there to make this, what is this second room, bar, coffee sort of thing?

What?”

“This bit at the front here, where you have it open to the street,” Nick circles his finger over a room that is separate from the main space of the club, but using it would change the shape of the whole club from an L to a proper rectangle.

“That’s not a bit from a shop next door Nick, that’s our second room, there's a door in the wall on your way into the bathrooms, we just never open it, don’t have the money to use it,or anyone to fill it.”

“What?” Nick repeats.

Louis swivels in his seat a little so he’s looking at Nick directly, “Where did you think the cloak room backed onto?” He slides the plan over so it’s more between them both and leans in closer, “See the cloakroom is here, and on the other side of that is where the bar runs out of in the small room. I always thought it’d be good to have those folding glass windows at the front, have seats ‘n all get some of those outside tables like at the square but for drinks and stuff, thought we could have like cheap tapas or something, maybe just in the summer.”

“Righttt.” Nick murmurs. He’s listening, he’s bewildered by this mystery room. Ghost room. But also, Louis Tomlinson’s hair smells like flowers. Flowers and a bit of weed. But flowers.

“Yeah. Right.” Louis sits up so suddenly Nick doesn't have time to move back a little and he almost hits the edge of Nick’s jaw as he does. “I know it’s not fancy Ibiza super club, like you like. I guess I was thinking like a more indie bar vibe. The tapas stuff is just you know, summer crowds. But I just wanted up to do more nights that weren’t just top 40 and jello shots, get some live music, do a dance night but indie music, a good proper dance pop house night for Saturday still, you know get some proper DJ’s on the roster, build them a profile, and to do that the place needs not to look so pouncy, the front room stuff is sort of secondary. Anyway.” He sort of makes a fake nervous laugh and and he shoots his hand out, grabs his tea cup and slurps it. Grimaces.

Nick is bit taken aback, “Louis, um, I don’t want Raspberries to be an Ibiza super club?”

“Oh?” Louis slides a finger along his fringe, “But you know, they are always sending us this horrid kitsch modern shite, and then they sent you.”

“Hey, I’m not horrid kitsch modern shite.” Nick protests with a grin.

Louis raises one eyebrow, “Well, your horrid and shite, not modern no.” He smirks.

And Nick almost thinks about it, almost second-guesses himself, but he always thinks about what he says to Louis and he wants to stop. Wants to just be himself. “Better than just being _a_ shite like some of us.” He says pointedly, raises an eyebrow.

“Oi!” Louis is mock offended.

And it’s nothing, it’s hardly banter, but it feels like something.

“Vodka!” Harry shouts and springs up from the couch, “Bake-off is on, we need to play bingo!” He rushes past them into the kitchen and starts banging around. Niall stands up after him and comes over to the dresser, starts pulling out a few shot glasses from the upper cabinet.

“Oh great, glad you’re finally showing that to Grimmy, told ya he’d be interested.”

“Yeah thanks Niall.” Louis answers in a tone of voice that sounds to Nick like ‘shut up.’

Niall is unbothered, “You can have me down for open mic nights hey?”

“Open mic nights?” Nick says a little alarmed.

“With the tapas.” Harry sings out from beside him. “Here, I’m leaving you two this bit of Kahlua and ahh, I think this is some butterscotch schnapps. Play along!” And they are gone back to their sofa and Bake-off.

“I hate schnapps.”

“I hate open mic nights.” Nick replies, he's pulling the shot glasses Niall left towards him and pouring out some schnapps as he speaks. “So tell me, how many of these floor boards am I going to have to lay myself, show me your figures.”

 

**—…—**

 

“Dense crumb!” Elgar shouts from the sofa and Nick reaches out for the Kahlua bottle.

“No, I’m not having any of that shit.” Louis protests as he pushes his shot glass towards Nick’s hands.

He’s feeling good. Nick’s got a lot of figures written on a page torn out of the back of an old notebook of Niall’s that was sitting on the dresser. Turns out there really is a bit of a maintenance budget these days, and Nick isn’t at all hesitant about playing outside the rules. He’s said that head office won’t want to pay for them to redo the floor, especially as they will view the light up monstrosity as an recent investment, but if Louis can keep doing odd handyman jobs, and Nick says he’ll try as well, then maybe they can just blow a whole heap of that and ‘go the fuck for it.’ Louis is still going to have to pull in a lot of favours, and it’s not like he really thinks Nick is going to help with any of the extra work, and he’ll be so busy soon with placement hopefully. If he gets that.

“You’re not pissed are you?” Louis asks for the fourth time.

Nick laughs, looks at him, looks down at him. Louis has not really been that close to him before, seated or standing, it’s been a little disconcerting to realise that even seated Nick Grimshaw is a fair bit taller than he is. Right now Louis is noticing that he also has a light covering of freckles on his face. Louis likes them he thinks. He blinks and has to look away to find his shot glass.

“I’m really not, are you?”

“I’m fine.” Louis slams the shot down. It’s horrid. “That’s horrid.” He says, shivering.

“You never wanted to do design then?” Nick gestures towards the plan, pushed aside a little for Louis’ laptop and his spreadsheet and Nick’s pilfered notebook paper.

“Design? What club insides? No.” Louis shakes his head. “This was a mock event set up, and I guess it was cheating a bit, but I thought what would I do to plan a great event that happened to be held at Raspberries - I picked a crowd I wanted to market it too, acts to play, budget and licensing ‘n all that.” He waves towards his laptop. Nick is nodding as he speaks, looks right at him. His phone is right beside him, always is, but when he looks at you Nick looks right at you.

Louis has watched the way Nick listens to other people like this, he always dismissed it as being false somehow. Thought it was Nick wanting to fuck Harry at first, but he’s like that with everyone. They both are really, so it was a bit confusing. Plus now Louis has watched him with the others at work and he does the same thing, listens properly, he’s always on his phone, sometimes he’s stocking a fridge behind the bar, but he looks up more than down and he says stuff back to you. Asks questions like he’s paying attention. Like he wants to know more. Well he does to other people.

Louis had thought Nick being fake, trying to integrate himself with everyone at work. But it’s not is it. It’s just him. He seems to actually be interested in people.

“So that’s your course isn’t it? Events?”

“Yeah, gonna make a festival.” Louis says as if he’s joking a little when he’s not really. He does want that.

“Louis Fest.” Nick sort of wets his lip before he speaks again, a little grin. Louis is distracted by the way he raises his eyebrows, “sounds, temperamental.”

He’s teasing. Louis realises just in time, it’s a joke not a dig. He takes a breath, “The _sound_ will be perfect.”

“Atmosphere though?” Nick’s running his finger round the edge of his shot glass. He has long fingers.

“Casual and a little bit riotous.”

Nick laughs proper then, “That sounds right.”

They smile at each other. Louis feels really odd. Nervous. A little like he wishes he wasn’t wearing this hoodie all of a sudden, it’s got a big stain on it from last time he tried to clean the bathroom and got bleach all on it.

“Watching the oven shot!” Harry yells.

Nick reaches for the Kahlua with a groan.

 

They try to play cards after Bake Off is done, but no one is any good at all, far to drunk for a Sunday and Niall goes to bed. At some stage Harry brings sheets and the spare comforter from the linen cupboard and puts them out.

“Do you want some PJs Elgar?” He asks.

“I’m alright thanks Harry.” Elgar says, me ‘n Nick are used to each other in our pants.

Louis looks at Nick too quick, moves his head and everything, Nick isn’t looking at him though, he’s hitting Elgar with a cushion, “Oi, I’m not sleeping on a sofa with you, I’m up in Harry’s bed.”

Elgar makes a noise similar to that that Louis’ sisters would if he had ever taken a boy or a girl home. Louis looks at Harry who is looking at him. He shakes his head no.

And Louis knows that. He knows that because when he came home to a landing full of Ikea boxes and to find out that Nick had bought Harry a fucking bed Louis had blown up at Harry. Who’d been very quiet. Very calm, just been slicing through the boxes with a knife so he could fold the cardboard smaller for the recycling and when Louis had finished ranting about unequal relationships and taking advantage and you’ve known him what a month, Harry had just said, “He’s lonely as fuck Lou.”

And Louis hadn’t listened. He’d instead pushed past Harry and gone into the bathroom to do a wee. Through the door Harry had yelled, “I’m not fucking him, I just really like him, and he stays over a lot and my bed was shit and my Mum gave me money for a new mattress for my back and he has moving allowance he never used so he got a bedframe so wouldn’t have to put the mattress on the floor. It’s that simple Louis.”

“Fucking odd.” Louis says into the mirror as he washes his hands.

“Is it?”

Louis goes out and starts helping to stamp down on the cardboard.

“It’s not like you and I don’t...”

“Yeah and that’s you and me.”

“I like Nick too Louis, you would too if you...” and then Harry pulled at his lip and stopped talking.

And Louis had observed enough by then to know it was true, nothing was happening with them, Harry was just best friends with everyone he met apparently, and Louis doesn’t mind as such. Just. Tonight, he sort feels like... He feels odd. He waves an awkward goodnight to Nick and Harry as they go up and he helps Elgar rearrange the sofa cushions so he can lay out on the thing, tucks the sheet in on top.

Elgar flops down and sighs happily.

Louis had thought how fancy all Nick’s mates seemed when they turned up. Nick had said he had friends down that weekend, and then they were there, fancy clothes and pink hair and Louis had tried to be a little loud, be a little funny. Then Aimee had said something that was about Zayn and Harry, and she didn’t know no one did. Just Louis isn’t over it is he. So he had a freak out and thank god for babies. Nick’s mates have turned out to be not at all pretentious. Proper good chats with all of them.

“You right then mate? Only bathroom is upstairs, I’ll leave the light on for you, sorry probably not what you're used to.” He know’s Elgar has a fancy job. Not totally sure what it is. And normally he wouldn’t really bother, I mean it’s Elgar and Nick’s choice to just crash out, not make some way home. But he likes Elgar, he’s hot. And nice. He asked what Louis thought.

“I feel like a student again, it’s great.”

Louis replies with a grunt more than a laugh, he throws the comforter so it falls over Elgar and goes into the kitchen and switches off the light, he hesitates when he’s at the one for the sitting room, looks to Elgar to see that he’s ok. He’s sitting up, bare chest and gentle smile. Louis flicks the light off so it’s dark, just light from the hallway and the stairs.

“G’night.”

“Louis?”

He stops, turns back around.

“Can I ask you something?”

Louis makes a noise of assent, walks back, sits on the sofa arm, Elgar sits up, the comforter falling a little more.

“You work with Nick, see him a fair bit.”

“Yes.” Louis acknowledges. No idea where this is going, his head is starting to ache a little, he’s got paracetamol in his room. He wants to go up.

Elgar shuffles up a bit more, “Do you think he’s alright? You think he’s doing okay?”

Louis looks at him, surprised. “Umm. I wouldn’t really know. I don’t...” He chews at the nail on his index finger, “You should ask Harry.”

Elgar makes a questioning noise.

“Nick ‘n I aren’t mates, don’t talk really.” Louis mumbles behind his finger.

“Did he do something?”

Louis turns to face Elgar properly, something hot washes over him, “No,” he says, “nothing directly.”

Elgar just looks, waits. He’s nice Elgar, been fun all weekend. Louis likes him a lot. Feels like he owes him an answer though and he doesn’t like that.

“I guess it was just head office had sent these people to manage the place, one after another and then they stopped, and it was me and, well me and this other bloke and then that ended.” Louis draws in a deep breath. “Anyway over summer I was away and there was another one, but they left pretty quick and then Chris, that’s our manager from Head Office asked me to come back early and then three weeks later there’s Nick just walk in.”

“But you weren’t back as manager?” Elgar asks.

“No.”

“So Nick didn’t take your job or anything?” He’s confused. And Louis doesn’t think he can really explain it.

“I guess there’d been one after the other and I couldn’t be bothered...”

Elgar interrupts then “Mealy mouthed.” He’s got a little smile though, Louis can see his face quite clearly in the light from the hall, “What he didn’t pay you enough attention, was he a bit busy stepping in to run a club in a place he has never lived with head office needing numbers up in six months or they’ll close it, all those new people he’s got working for him, depending on him, and you thought he was the enemy?”

“No.” Louis shakes his head, he hopes his blush is hidden.

“Good, because you are the most senior after him, you’d be his best support at work wouldn’t you, and you seem to all be pretty close, he’s told me you are all very close so you’d want the best for everyone else.”

He didn’t know about the six months. And fuck, he came back to Bournemouth for everyone, he always thought of himself as being the one who was protecting people’s jobs. And what, by not helping Nick he’s actually fucking everyone over? He feels ill. He can’t find any words.

“Anyway, I just worry, after Ibiza and that fuckwit I worry about him. You can’t help but love Nick can you?” Elgar says this like it’s a fact that Louis will just agree on. He’s still processing the fact that him being a stroppy bastard is possibly fucking them all over. That he should have made an effort to work with Nick before tonight. The light flicks on suddenly, Louis jumps, turns to look.

“Oh. Sorry.” Nick says, a little frozen in the open door, his mouth flat, “just getting some water.”

“Get me one Nick!” Elgar calls out easy as anything.

Louis is done. He’s tired and confused and a bit drunk, head hurting and he needs his bed.

“Right. G’night.” He mutters and just goes. He climbs the stairs quick as he can and goes to the toilet, doesn’t even bother to clean his teeth. He pulls off his jumper as he opens the bathroom door, starting to get undressed and of course as he goes back outside Nick has just climbed up to the landing.

He stops and Louis stops, and they stand there for just a moment. Nick’s top lip is a little wet, must be from the water, Louis thinks as he stops staring at Nick’s lips and instead stares at at the glass in his hands. At his long fingers. Fuck. He needs to go to sleep

“I like your tattoo.” Nick sort of blurts out. then immediately turns and throws an odd high pitched “G’night!” over his shoulder as he starts to climb up the steep stairs to Harry’s atic.

Louis blinks and turns around himself, starts undoing the button of his jeans before he’s even shut his bedroom door. Bloody exhausting weekend.

 

**—…—**

 

Nick goes into the club to meet with Louis on Tuesday. He’s a little nervous. He changes his t shirt into a shirt and blow dries his quiff properly up. He doesn’t know why.  
After everyone went home to London on Monday afternoon he’d spent Monday night with Corrie on the TV and him transcribing everything he’d scribbled on a bit of scrap paper on Sunday night.

Everything apart from the doodles of flowers. Nick has never doodled flowers before and there are three of them randomly half-way down the page on the right. He then googled hardwood floor installation.

He’s daunted.

Louis had messaged last night, saying that he had new figures, he thinks he can get better deals from some of his ‘contacts,’ Nick doesn’t really know what that means. He knows Louis knows a lot of tradesmen but he still doesn’t quite understand what Louis gives them in return for favours.

Nick stops to get a tea from the cafe up the street, reads his messages.

 

 **Harry;** _Have fun at with Lou today I know he’s excited called everyone yesterday, Don’t forget about lunch tomorrow._

 

Louis is excited. okay. Nick feels nervous again. Nick buys a tea for him as well.

When he gets to the club he goes in the front. Louis has switched on the lights and is standing by the edge of the dance floor holding three rulers.

“I brought you a tea.” Nick says by way of a greeting.

Louis looks up then and smiles. He’s wearing joggers, a beanie and incongruously a thin looking t shirt that the collar is stretched out of. Nick can see that fucking tattoo again.

Louis holds his free hand out for the tea saying, “We have to go to up to the hardware place in Richmond Gardens and get some measuring tape, Smithy will come by this morning to have a look and he might even have something for us by tomorrow afternoon.”

Nick starts laughing, “Were you going to measure it out with rulers?”

“I found them out the back.” Louis says mulishly, slurps his tea. “Too milky, this.”

“Drink what you’re given. Three rulers? It seems more unlikely that we'd have three rulers and no measuring tape than the other way.”

Louis starts putting on his leather jacket he wears on the scooter, “Come on, you can buy me a new tea as we go by Costa.”

“Can we look at that secret front room first?” Nick’s bewildered there’s a whole room he knows nothing about. Although also quite scared, more square footage is more space to profit. More headcount that they aren’t meeting. It’s a thing. He needs to look at it and then go back and check the figures.  

“Smithy will come by soon though, we’ll want to have the measurements done.” Louis says like it’s a sort of order. Nick is used to this. Louis not really asking Nick, more telling him what is happening.

What he’s not used to is Louis then hesitating, running a finger along his fringe and his eyes darting to the wall leading to the bathrooms, “I mean we can look when we get back can’t we? Sorry, I’m being pushy I just really want to get started on this.”

 

While they walk up the street Nick says, “I was thinking.”

“Hmmm?”

“I want to have a meeting with all the staff, should’ve done it already really but I want everyone’s thoughts about Raspberries future, see if they have any ideas for what to do to make it better.”

Louis is looking at him, seems a little taken aback, hasn’t noticed he’s about to walk into a bollard at the start of the car free zone on Old Christchurch. Nick grabs his arm and pulls Louis so he doesn’t fall. Instead he sort of stumbles into him, turning a little bit so Louis hits Nick’s chest and Nick reaches out and grabs his upper arm to steady him. Louis’ palm landing flat on Nick’s upper chest and then fingertips digging in a little.

Nick’s embarrassed, it all got a bit dramatic. “Sorry, the thing was in your way.” He says looking down at Louis. The leather of his coat is soft, a bit springy and under that his arm. Which Nick realises he’s not let go of. So he does.

Louis has dropped his hand and is blinking up at him, seems to be looking at his nose maybe, at his face. He licks his bottom lip for the briefest of moments.

“It’s alright.” He says after what seems like ages, “Thanks, that would’ve hurt.” And he steps back.

 

At the entrance to the hardware shop, Costa takeaway cup in one hand Louis grabs a trolley with the other and Nick grabs the side of it as he swings it around.

“How many tape measures are we getting?”

There’s other stuff, I’ve got a list. and Louis reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a neatly folded piece of notepaper.

“Dictated it to Niall last night, he’s got the neatest handwriting, hope you appreciate what I do for you.”

“What Niall did?”

Louis smiles, “But by getting Niall to do it I saved you having to try to read my writing, so I did you a favour.” He sips his tea, eyebrows raised.

“Dead nice of you that was Louis.” Nick says drily as he unfolds the damn thing.

 

In the end it’s pretty simple. Louis did some volunteering in his first year with the people that put on the ubiquitous airshow. It’s huge, he got to know a lot of suppliers. He seems to have charmed them all. When this Smithy actually calls round to see them a little later while they are in the midst of the measuring, he hugs Louis hello, looks Nick up and down and says

“This is the posh nob is it? He’s too tall ain’t he?”

“I’m standing right here.” Nick says affronted.

“He’s not posh, Northern too, but yeah, far too tall.” Louis says ignoring Nick completely even while he defends him and insults him. “Now come look, can we lay over the top of this thing do you think?

 

They can lay over the dance floor, just need to put down some sort of waterproof thing and some other stuff, and Smithy can get them engineered hardwood for the price of vinyl wood.

“We can sand that back Nick, restain it,  that’s what we need.” Louis tells him.

Nick looks at the built in seats, “How much to demo those and cover that bit of floor in the same Smithy?”

 

So they have a staff meeting. Nick wants to take them out somewhere nice, but he just spent all the ongoing maintenance budget and half what he has for consumables on engineered hardwood floor plank things. Not to mention the tubs of sticky smelly stuff, glue he thinks maybe, as well as a lot of paint for the walls and it’s a bit dicey to be honest. In the end Louis says they’ll be rowdy anyway and to have it at Raspberries.

So he orders a fair few pizzas in from the nice woodfired place, some salads and everyone comes, even with only two days notice. Nancy and Denise who do the cleaning in the morning, Jade who does the bar as well, and she has Leigh-Anne on facetime which is a bit odd for Nick as he’s never worked with her but ‘she _is_ summer at Raspberries’ the ladies all insist. Liam is there almost too early and when Louis turns up the way Nancy and Denise dote over him reminds Nick how he’s so out of place in a place that’s barely a place anyway. Just a dump. He feels that emptiness that’s often just pushed aside for a moment. Is this futile. Is this a joke. Why's he so afraid of going back to London.

But as they all start arranging themselves in the booths, Louis over at the bar fetching drinks for Nancy and Denise. Liam pops up and turns on some music, _No Diggity_. Of course. It's very Liam.

He’s about to tell him to change it but then Denise waves her hand in the air, “Ohh I like this one Li!” She calls out and well. Fair enough.

Harry turns up finally, although actually he’s right on time just the rest had been early. He’s got Niall and an easel thing.

Niall kisses everyone hello while Harry drops whatever it is he's carrying unceremoniously on the dance floor.

“Nick!” He grins, “I brought you an easel and a huge pad of paper, for all your  night club brainstorming dreams. I stole it from the events department at uni.” With that Harry looks towards Louis who glances up from where he’s passing the drinks out and gives Harry a look that’s so proud it makes Nick start to laugh.

They set up the easel thing and Harry produces some bright coloured markers aswell and sits in the second booth, the first one full of the ladies and Niall.

Louis walks by and gives him a drink, Nick sips it without pause, he’s a bit nervous. It’s perfect, Vodka tonic, fresh lime and tiny bit of crushed mint. Feels nice and refreshing. He takes a deep breath.

“Alright.” He starts, watching as Louis slides in next to Liam. “So, It’s been a month I’ve been here for now, and I think what you all do is fantastic. You work so hard and put so much in, but we all know Raspberries could be better, and tonight I want to know what you all think we should do to make that happen. Hopefully get some more punters in, have a bit more fun. Go as wild as you like, no idea is a bad one.”

“Pool tables!” Niall yells out straight away. “Guinness on tap and darts and a Sky sports package!”

“Do you work here Niall?”

“I do when it’s busy enough, meant to be a glassie.” He throws a bit of Feta from the top of a salad into his mouth. Nick looks at Louis, somehow he ends up collecting the glasses most nights as he walks the floor. All the odd jobs Louis fits in.

“No idea is a bad one Nick!” Comes a tinny voice from Jade’s phone.

“Thanks Leigh-Anne.” Niall sings out.

Nick writes _sky sports package_ on his big paper with a green marker.

 

**December**

 

They have to close for a week. Term ends on the fifteenth and Louis says ‘fuckit, lets do it that week before Christmas.’ Which would seem a terrible time to anyone else, but when Nick looks at the previous year’s takings from that week there’s no difference from regular weeks, if anything it was a little down. So they do.

 

So about three weeks later, Louis having done the organisation for a skip permit, they are having a bin delivered out the front for the day, special weekend delivery thank's to Louis and all his odd connections.

Just Nick had to be the one to wake up and meet it. He’s waving goodbye to Nancy and Denise after their go through on Sunday morning, the place spick and span as they always leave it. They are amazing both of them. Nick blows hot air onto his hands while he watches them walk away and reminds himself that the club is small, but it’s something.

After the big bin is delivered and fenced off he goes back into the staff room and falls asleep on the horrid sofa in there.

 

Niall and a mixed rugby club come in an hour or so later. They have sledgehammers and crowbars and take apart the booths. This is saving them a bit of money. They just have to put a bar tab on for them at the end of the season.

“I’m going to sign that one” Niall says pointing to huge bloke who everyone keeps calling Duck.

“I thought you were looking at golf management?” Nick replies, wincing as a table top is wrenched off with an awful splintering noise.

“Should see his forward swing.” Niall gives a sort of wink, “Now open up that there ghost room and we’ll take the rubbish out from it.

 

The room at the front was mostly full of junk. They’d investigated after the staff meeting. Louis had some trouble remembering where the key was and in the end they needed Denise with her keys to let them all in.

He’d never seen the doorway because the length of that wall is painted black, and there’s no handle just a keyhole and the sign with a little arrow pointing towards the bathroom. Liam took the nails out that was hanging the sign, Denise unlocked the door. And Nick titled his insta story of the whole thing as _‘spooky locked ghost room.’_

It was full of old promo material, some wobbly bar tables which Liam had turned over and Louis and him had agreed they could fix. And of course some broken foam machines. Nick did not even allow discussion of fixing those. There’s nothing they can do with the room at this stage, but it’s there. It’s something to think about if they get through stage one of ‘Rebirth Raspberries’ as Harry calls it.

Nick’s watching them move stuff out, he has helped carry a few things, but he seems to mostly be in the way so he’s standing aside for now.

“What do you want done with this?” A girl called Adele yells out as she pushes a disco ball out from behind the little bar.

“Ho-ly shit!” Nick almost skips over to look at it. Huge and round and a few bits of mirror missing but the chain looks intact. He unapologetically loves a disco ball.

There’s something about this that sparks in Nick. He feels giddy, suddenly happier than in the past three months. Well apart from when he made baby-Ada laugh the other weekend, that was good. But there’s something about this huge random disco ball hidden in a secret room at his horrid club that is very comforting. He’s sure it’s metaphorical in some way. He’ll ask Harry when they have a smoke later in the week he thinks as he struggles to lift his twenty-eight inch circular very-shiney baby up to take it somewhere safe.

 

That afternoon Smithy and two other lads come. Nick keeps them supplied with ale while they lay something that goes over the floor, waterproofing, and then they lay ply and some cushiony stuff. Makes it all one even surface, the dance floor and where the seating used to be. He’s grateful that they came in on a Sunday, but also he wishes he could just leave them all at it. He sits at the bar on his laptop looking at Facebook promo pages for clubs Harry has told him are competitors and wishes he could just go home and have a nap.

He doesn’t need to watch the light up floor being covered up, there’s no sentiment there. Also he feels a bit worried, seeing it all actually happen makes it very real. He is counting on Chris not doing a surprise head office visit anytime soon. Until they are well set up again at least. He’s told him they are doing a bit of a clean, a small update. Chris has offered some money for paint but after Nick accepted that he’s not heard back. He’s a little worried about what to say about shutting for a week, but then again last year's figures were dismal. Nick’s counting on January to pick up and make up the quarter. He’s also trying not think about it. He falls asleep and has odd dreams of his boss being on the way and Nick not being able to get in the door of the club because his head us a disco ball and it doesn’t fit through the door.

 

Monday at 7.30am and he’s meeting Louis and Smithy at the club, and is having a crash course on laying floorboards.

“So you slide that in there and then...” Smithy points the nail gun down and pulls the trigger thing. Nick is proud of how little he jumps. The noise from the nail gun is very loud. Smithy grins at him.

“So now I’ve rehung your toilet sign should I show you how to lay the floor?”

The floor involves no nails, just glue and being bent over for a long time.

“You’d be used to that though Louis.” Smithy says as he looks down at Louis who’s just slid a second board into the first. He’s joking. Banter. But Nick is thrilled with the way Louis’ sits up on his haunches,  narrows his eyes and even from down on the ground manages to look the other man up and down.

“I always say you’re far too interested in my sex life Smithy.” Is all he says in reply. Mild as anything, but somehow icy as fuck.

Nick is a little turned on. He runs a thin line of glue up the groove of the next board and ponders the likelihood that overexposure to grumpy icey little shites can somehow change your kinks.

After Smithy leaves and Nick is setting up his laptop for some music he messages Aimee and asks her.

 

 **_Aimee_ ** _: Would we call Louis grumpy though? More waiting to be impressed I thought?_

 

He hadn’t even mentioned his name.

 

It was always the only way that they were going to afford it, if they laid it themselves, and especially after they expanded the space they were covering to include the floor that had been covered by the built-in seating. Nick has watched so many youtube videos he felt like he’d know what he was doing. And he does, apart from when they have to cut a length to make it fit. Smithy has left them with a circular saw set up in the ghost room and Nick is not touching it.  But he also won’t let Louis use it on his own. Instead watches from the doorway as Louis puts his safety goggles on and gloves that look far too big for his hands.

“Are they the right size?” Nick yells out waving his own hands in the air.

Louis turns the horrid machine off, holds his ear muffs out from his ears. Everything looks to big. The muffs, the gloves, the safety glasses.

“The gloves, they look too big, I should do it.”

Louis starts to laugh, “Nick you won’t even come in the room.”

“I’m worried about your hands.” Nick insists.

“Well you actually need yours to DJ so...” Louis holds his palms-clad-in-to-big-gloves up to the ceiling. Nick must still look worried, as Louis huffs a little bit and frowns, looks a little annoyed.

“What if I say the ear muffs won’t fit over your big head? Now go away you're making me actually nervous.”

Nick silently goes just in behind the bar, only a few steps away, holds his breath the whole few seconds it takes for Louis to make the cut.

When Louis comes out, pulling off his goggles and holding the board looking at his work he sees Nick behind the bar and rolls his eyes.

It’s a bit awkward for the rest of the morning then. Nick isn’t sure why. His back hurts, and they have been at it for a while, just Nicks playlist and repetitive movements and odd if monosyllabic requests to pass boards and glue and mallets back and forth. Nick gets a bit hot, takes off his jumper. He wants to ask Louis about what sort of nights they should try with in the new year. Wants to start planning that sort of stuff, but when he looks at him the words dry in his mouth. It’s a bit tense and odd.

 

At lunch time Harry comes in with pink cheeks, wheeling a bright green bike and carrying a bag of hot pastries from Greggs.

“Louis I got a bike, bought it off Josh in my course, the chain sticks a little will you look at it with me later?” He calls out.

And Nick is looking at Louis, because he’s crouched in front of him, sliding the next board into place and it’s odd. Louis’ face does a strange thing, it goes from his normal welcoming Harry level smile to a quick frown, and then he blinks deliberately and seems to steel himself to answer Harry.

“Of course I will mate. Ahh, did you get pies, you're amazing.”

Nick stands up and stretches, raising his arms right up and looking up to the struts that the lights hang from. He can’t wait to hang his disco ball he thinks as he scratches his stomach. He’s very hungry. When he looks back down Louis _has_ to have been looking at him because he moves his head so suddenly. Nick doesn’t really know how to take that. Something sort of jumps in his stomach and he feels excited maybe. Nervous. He holds his hand out to him to help him up and Louis looks back at him and grabs it. It all happens in less than a moment but Nick walks over to where Harry has put out the pasties and he feels different. Lighter.

 

**—…—**

 

In the morning the next day he aches everywhere. He has a really long shower that he only get’s out of because Niall comes in yelling, “Louis get your butt outta that shower I’ll come in have you wash me.”

He’d been so excited to get started updating Raspberries he’d been a little single minded about it all. He is putting off going home for Christmas, but also the summer break had been such a waste he’s a little awkward about going home. He knows his Mum is going to want to see him different, see him happier. And he’s not.

He’s busy. He’s doing things, but sometimes when he’s lying awake trying desperately not to think he realises how much of him doing things is just keeping occupied. Keep something else always racing through his mind so nothing else does.

Nick’s been better than he thought he would be. He seemed admiring of Louis’ plans and that weird conversation with Elgar has kept playing round his mind. But everytime he thinks maybe he isn’t so bad, he’s there making Louis feel a bit stupid.

 

Or having legs.

 

When he gets into the club at 8am, six days out from Christmas, Nick is wearing shorts. And he is too tall. Too many legs. Too much. Louis needs a tea.

He looks him up and down slowly. When he meets Nick's eyes he goes pink, he’s pretty sure Nick caught him checking him out the day before. He’d been surprised was all, distracted. Nick had surprisingly nice hair on his stomach. Of all things.

“You're going to bugger up your knees.” He says instead of hello, and hopefully as an excuse for the way he was looking at him.

Nick grins, “Brought you a present!” And from a bag on the floor he pulls out knee pads. “You’d think from how much I like being on my knees I would have thought of this yesterday.” He crows, utterly gleeful exaggerated eyebrows, the works.

Louis catches the two pads as Nick throws them across. “Not even my birthday yet.”

“They can be for Christmas.”

“It’s my birthday first.” Louis says, ripping the velcro open, the pads actually seem quite good.

Nick’s coming over, they have an old kettle behind the bar and he fills it up. “When’s your Birthday?”

“Christmas Eve.” Louis sits down on the floor, starts fitting the kneepads on over his track pants.

“Shit Louis, you should be at home.” Nick sounds taken aback and Louis is hot with anger. Who the fuck is he to judge where Louis is.

“It’s none of your business what I do. I’ll go home when I need to.” His tone venomus.

Nick looks up from the mugs bewildered, “What? Why are you stroppy now for fucks sake?”

And it’s the first time Louis thinks he’s heard Nick fire up really. He laughs a fair bit. Laughs a lot with the others, Harry and Niall and Liam and with Jade and Denise and the person who served them at Costa the other... Louis looks down and fixes up one of the velcro straps on his kneeepad. The sound is loud.

“Louis I just meant I didn’t like the idea of you staying here when you probably want to be home with your family. I wasn't having a go.”

And Louis knows he wasn’t. He heard what he wanted to hear in what Nick said. Because he’s guilty and because he _is_ avoiding it.

 

He gets up and goes over to the bar, stands up leaning against it and looks at the mugs. “I’m sorry I didn’t sleep much last night. Ay, enough milk that is.”

“I don't sleep well either.” Nick answers, pulling the pour of milk up short.

 

Nick puts on what he says is a classic playlist, ‘for weddings when they are in the messy we should all go home stage’

And they get started. It is a good playlist, just bad enough to be perfect. Louis finds himself humming along to _Keep On Loving You_ before he’s finished his tea. They work with a more natural rhythm today, the gluing and sliding and soft mallet and him going off to cut the end pieces. They are going to finish today he thinks and it’s good. It’s a good feeling.

He comes back after cutting a few boards at once and Nick is proper singing to Elton John, he see’s Louis come back in and he picks up his mallet and points at him, _“Oh teacher I need you like a little child You got something in you to drive a schoolboy wild!”_

“Fuck this song is fucked!” Louis laughs, “what the hell, I need you like a little child?”

“It was the seventies Louis, you innocent millennium baby, all part of a good comprehensive, I remember in my day, back before Maggie took the milk...”

Louis interrupts, “Shut up, you’re what, thirty if that?”

Nick sobers a little at that, touches his cheekbones, the edge of his eyes, “Yeah, was thirty last August.”

“Well that’s young enough to get down and help me with this last section.” Louis points to the other end of where he is working, just near the stage now.

Nick obliges, heads over and drops down to start working, Louis runs the line of glue up the edge of the board and he’s passing the third of fourth board over to Nick trying to see if he can spot those freckles he thought he saw the other day, looking at the way he sets his mouth while he concentrates on sliding the board into place, sneaks a glance at the tattoo that keeps moving in and out of view at the hemline of those stupid shorts when he realises that he’s also thinking about if Nick is comfortable on his knees. What that would be like.

He needs another cup of tea probably.

 

They are done the floor, They just have to nail in the skirting board, but they are done, sitting side by side on the step that goes down to the dance floor, both leaning back on their arms, knee-pad protected knees in front of them. Nick pulls his phone out and shuffles closer next to him. “I’m taking a picture.” He announces. and Louis is fine with that. So long as he doesn’t have to move. He stretches his legs out, dirty joggers and bloody knee pads next to Nick’s longer hairier legs. 1912 on his thigh. The floor they made behind their legs.

Nick leans in a little closer and takes the picture, then flops back onto the carpet.

“I’m fucked.” He groans.

Louis moves a little to the right, gives them a little space between each other, and then does the same thing. He can feel his back pulling as he lays down slowly.

They lay there for a moment. _True Faith_ by New Order playing in the background.

“I want to have an indie dance night, new tracks, classics, there's not really anything like that in Bournemouth.” Louis says without much thought but butterflies come as soon as he says it. The idea isn't that original, but it's his, it's part of where he'd situate Raspberries in the market if he could. How he'd make them different from the other clubs on offer, skew their market away from top forty same old.

“Yeah definitely, Thursday night?” Nick says easy, as if they hadn't had actually play lists sent to them by head office at one stage.

“Really?”

“Of course.” Nick says simply. "It's smart, good idea. I love this song so much.”

“Isn’t it about drugs.”

“Isn’t everything?”

“Or sex.” Louis says and for some reason feels a little prickle of, not embarrassment but something hot after he does. As if it’s a little dangerous to say sex when he’s laid out on the floor next to Nick.

“True.” Nick rolls over on his side then groaning a little as he does. He puts his right hand up under his head and his left one slaps down on the carpet. He opens his mouth as if to ask Louis another question, but then he stops, slaps the carpet again. Looks up at Louis a little wildly, “What’s under this hideous carpet every cruise ship in the Mediterranean rejected?”

Louis turns his head and looks at him, “Dunno.”

“Concrete or boards do you think?”

“Concrete that we could paint?” Louis sits up, then leans forward and gets on his knees again, reaches out for a hammer that is sitting near by.

“Painted concrete would be so much better than cruise ship carpet.” Nick’s not even finished speaking and Louis has started pulling at the edge of the carpet with the back of his hammer and then just pulling it back with his hands.

“It’s concrete!”

 

Nick gets up then and calls Chris from head office. It’s an odd conversation. Louis gets the feeling that Nick is dodging some questions because he says a few things that don’t make sense. ‘Last night wasn’t that busy’ which no, they were shut so it wasn’t. ‘Think we might not even open the next few nights because everyone has gone home for Christmas’ and then ‘I know I fucked up the rosters I’m sorry Chris.’ And then ‘Thank you yes, that amount will be enough. I swear the repaint will honestly tie it so much more together, it’s just dead shabby as is and we've got some great plans for events in the new year.’

Louis has been pretending to be busy, he went and fixed them both a drink. They’ve earned it after all. And when Nick gets off the phone and comes back from where he’d wandered off by the front door Louis slides the Vodka tonic across the bar and says expectantly, “Nicholas Grimshaw have you been fibbing to our ‘Ead Office?”

Nick takes the drink and looks at him while he sips it and swallows. Louis watches him swallow, watches the movement of his throat and doesn’t even notice he’s doing it until Nick finally answers him, “You know that’s the happiest you’ve looked when you've been looking at me?”

Louis’ cheeks go pink, “I. What?”

“When you thought I was doing something sketchy that’s the happiest I’ve seen you look.”

Louis laughs, more in relief than anything. Maybe the glue fumes from the boards has gone to his head. That’s the only explanation.

“Are you doing something sketchy?”

“No more than you were when you taught yourself how to cement in a loo.” Nick sips his drink again, and looks at it the whole while he puts it back down on the top of the bar. “Just trying to give us all a chance.” He says when he looks up.

 

Louis calls Niall and in less than two hours he’s brought back the Mixed Rugby team, and with the promise of holding an end of season function, not just after party drinks and they seem totally happy to pull up the carpet and the underlay. However Adele, who greets Nick with a kiss on the cheek and an enquiry after his ‘big mirrored baby’ climbs up to the DJ booth and starts proper doing a set.

“I’m going to ask her if she wants a gig I think” Nick says in passing, his arms full of spongy underlay. Louis agrees. She’s just mixed Sampa the Great into the Stone Roses seamlessly.

“I’ve signed her too Grimshaw!” Niall calls out, "I get ten percent!”

 

They can’t afford to polish the concrete, but the paint they can just do. First they have to do the walls though and that was always the plan for Wednesday. Nancy and Denise come in and Harry of course and they love the wood floor and Louis feels chuffed and Nick keeps encouraging the praises as they get to work painting the walls round the outside of the dance floor black. They are going with Louis’ plan of just the first long wall and behind the bar being pink, which, well Louis is glad that’s not an argument he has to have with Nick.

Jade comes in with Leigh-Anne who’s back for Christmas and she is giggling with Nick within a moment. Louis looks up from where he is cutting in and watches Nick doing his listening thing. He doesn’t see it as fake at all anymore. He can see how Nick is tired, he’s got purple under his eyes and his hair is flat and messy but the way he looks at Leigh-Anne while he’s introduced, the way he asks a question and waits for the answer, he moves, he picks up his brush again and starts to roll it along the wall but he looks toher. It’s not groundbreaking, it’s normal human interaction but there is something about the ready way people laugh with Nick that is a little mesmerising for Louis. He decides to go get some ice from behind the bar and put it down the back of Niall’s shirt instead of think these odd things.

 

They start the floor the next day, just the two of them. Aching and tired and Louis hates the world.

They have cleaned and then washed the floor with some stuff that makes the paint adhere better and they have to wait about twelve hours for that to take so having worked themselves into the little hallway Nick and him both collapse onto the sofa in the staff room. Louis would put his feet up on the rickety coffee table that is in there but that huge mirror ball is on it.

“What are you doing with that then?” He asks.

Nick has his head tipped back, eyes shut. He’s pale. Can freckles fade in a month. Why is Louis constantly thinking about freckles.

“I’m going to get do it over Christmas, stick the mirrors on.”

“Are you taking it home then? You’re not too far from Harry are you? I know he’s got Liam’s car.”

Nick doesn’t say anything straight away then mumbles, “I’m not going home for Chrissie, just going to have a quiet one.”

Louis turns his head to look at him. “That sounds a bit shit, are your folks away?”

“Just didn’t feel up to going home.”

Louis thinks a moment. Thinks about the way his friends had been with him, warm and soft, gentle. Thinks about Elgar asking after Nick, worried about him. Remembers suddenly Harry saying he was lonely, ‘lonely as fuck.’ He thinks about how he went home for summer but wasn’t even there, how he’s scared to go back a little and how it’s been good to have so much to do here. How even if there hadn’t have been, he probably would have made it so it was. Is that what annoys him most about Nick. That he’s made it that there isn’t so much for Louis to get lost in doing. To hide in doing. These are thoughts for when he’s trying to sleep. He must be so tired his brain is giving them to him now.

“You get on alright with them? Your folks?”

Nick nods, “Yeah, my Mum’s great, my Dad’s, well, it’s fine. He tries. I’m probably not what he thought of for a son, but it’s good. Lotta love in all. Got a brother and a sister and there is little ones. ” He sounds tired, voice croaky.

Louis is getting his phone out of his pocket while he talks, “You should go home, I know Harry’s driving back you should go with him.” He angles the screen away from Nick and sends Harry a message, get’s one back almost straight away.

“Right, we’re leaving on Saturday, you and me should go get some sleep so we can get this done tomorrow.” He slaps at Nick’s leg half-heartedly.

“You’re always so bossy.” Nick says almost as if he is asleep.

Louis feels a bit annoyed. He’s trying to do something nice here. “Yeah well, you don’t have any good ideas on your own do you.” He replies and it sounds a bit more spiteful than he meant it to. Nick opens his eyes when he says it and turns his head a little so he can see him.

“Yup. Shit Nick, that’s me.”

Louis is too tired. “Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow.” He mutters. He should apologise, joke about something. INstead he grabs his helmet and jacket and just thumps down to the back lane.

 

It’s fine in the morning, they get the floor done, music on as usual and it’s a fucking great come mid-afternoon looking back at the club from the doorway, concrete a very dark-blue gray, wooden dance floor waiting to be jumped on and have drinks spilt on it alike, bright fuchsia wall now just an oddity, not an identity.

“We’ll pick you up at about ten tomorrow, is that alright?” Louis says finally.

“Oh.” NIck sounds surprised, “You're coming with us?”

And well fuck him, ungrateful dick. Louis had got Harry to wait on driving up a day, had sorted it so it was all nice and easy because he thought it’d do Nick some good to go home, see his people. And no Nick doesn’t know that. But still. It rankles. Louis walks away,

“What?” Nick calls after him and comes to stand in the doorway watching him put on his jacket.

“You’re coming with us Grimshaw. I asked you remember?”

“No you said Harry was driving back and when I’ve been messaging him he didn’t mention you, I was just surprised.” Nick sounds confused.

Louis just looks at him.

“It’s not a bad thing.” Nick says as if that’s meant to be placating.

“Oh thanks.” Louis says sarcastically. “Excuse me.” And he pushes past and heads out to the back door.

“No really, it’s great actually,” Nick is yelling behind him, “I want to talk to you about the new programming and...”

Louis lets the door slam behind him. Breathes and tries to think about something nice, his brother and sisters on Christmas morning.

Fuck.

He has to get some presents for them. He wonders if e-vouchers would be alright or will he have to get something that’s wrapped up as well. And he can’t give the youngest ones e-vouchers.

Maybe he should just let Grimshaw have his way and he stay in bloody Bournemouth with the fucking disco ball.

 

—…—

 

**January**

 

It’s the third Saturday in January, the second since uni went back and Nick is stood in Raspberries, he’s not working, he’s just sipping a vodka tonic and surveying a large happy group of people enjoying the fuck out of themselves and it’s a bit bizarre.

The fortnight has gone better than anyone could have thought. He hired a few new people, a quiet boy called Matty who is happy to sit in the cloak room so long as Nick is okay with him mostly doing his uni work, which Nick is. And they’ve got two new people for the bar, a boy called Douglas who definitely has a thing for Harry and most notably a new shift manager called Fiona. Louis had come back from his break looking a little less thin than before, although still with annoyingly distracting cheekbones and scruff. And eyes. Nick thinks, scanning the crowd, not that he’s looking for him.

He’d told Nick a little quietly, not nervously, but sort of like it was taking a lot for him to have to share his plans with Nick that he had to cut back to three nights of work because he was starting placement. Nick isn’t sure why Louis didn’t mention it before, after all, with Harry as mediator they’d spent the five or so hours it had taken to drive to Doncaster working out the programming they would trial for three months and had both agreed to open five nights. But he’s glad. He it’s easy to see how much Louis likes his course, how he really does have a skill for getting stuff organised for a very specific end. Nick really likes that about him. How he can conceptualise something and then isn’t afraid to do the graft to make it happen. He’d said so on the letter of reference he’d written out for Louis to help him secure his placement. Louis hasn’t asked for one, but Nick thinks he needs it probably, so he wrote one in case. Which is a bit odd maybe. But he’d been at home on Monday night with nothing to do. Messaging with Gillian and Aimee during double-Corrie and feeling flat. Far away from them all. Although he’s the one who said no to going to London for New Years, no matter how many people had messaged and rung to ask and tell him to. So he shouldn’t complain.

He glances behind him towards the cloak room now, the odd assortment of sofas and chairs which Jade, Harry and him cobbled together on a day spent trawling around two estate sales and three different charity shops are about half full. They managed to find ones that are all sort of jewel tones, lots of velveteen and one big brown worn leather one. They look good against the fuschia wall and Denise and Nancy have covered them in industrial amounts of fabric guard. They also found a few big worn rugs and Nick had impulsively bought them himself. They add a warmth and a proper feeling to that area and it’s nice when the club is less full to have a proper sitting spot. Louis hasn’t commented on the rugs. Nick wants to ask him what he thinks.

 

They’d done the first Indie night on the first Thursday after uni started, and even that had been pretty good. Maybe it helped that it was bloody freezing outside, sleeting almost but people who came for the normal cheap happy hour drinks, who normally left after that hour had stayed for dancing, seemed to text others to come down. Paddy on the door had a queue for the first time since Nick had started. Nick had played most of the night, and it’d been brilliant. Harry and Louis and Jade behind the bar, Niall had appeared with a few ubiquitous rugby players and kept messaging him to play the Eagles, which no, he might have a room of people jumping to Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes but that’s not happening. And it’s just got better since then. Fiona is great at social media stuff and that’s helped promo to no end.

And this Saturday he’s handed it over to Adele and Liam to play, Liam has two mates from his course who started doing the lights last week and that’s made all the difference as well, the atmosphere it adds will pay for itself. He hopes.

He takes a deep breath and just allows it all to sink in. Loud yelling happy people. Girls in trainers and heels already on the floor splashing sticky drinks around. Adele drops the bass line in a track and the room jumps. Nick’s grinning. There’s a vibe in here. There’s a fucking vibe.

It’s odd then what happens, not that he was looking as such, but he finally spots Louis.

He’s stood with his hand up, leaning against a pole beside the steps down to the dance floor. The way he’s leaning his hip is popped out and Nick can see the curve of his shoulder running down to his waist and then his arse. Louis turns around, the angles of his face catching in the lighting, blue and bright for a moment, and Nick can see he’s smiling too. And something lurches in his chest a little. They fucking did this. Him and Louis. He pushes off the wall at the same time as Louis spots him, it’s gratifying on a level that Nick doesn’t want to pay attention to right now that when Louis sees him his smile gets broader, he tips his head up, gives him a salute by pointing his chin at him.

Nick nods his head in the direction of the bar and Louis glances over there and then nods an agreement.

They meet up at the edge, Harry sees them and somehow with Louis just holding up a finger Harry’s got a bottle of tequila as well as shot glasses, lemons and a little salt shaker in front of them in a moment.

Nick watches as Louis licks the back of hand, watches a little too long as Louis must get impatient, he grabs Nick’s hand and swipes his tongue across the back of it.

“Germs.” Nick laughs, not thinking about the fact that Louis’ tongue is quite firm, and not too wet.

“Alcohol is a disinfectant!” Louis yells, he sort of bounces up as he speaks, he must be up on his toes so Nick can hear him.

They take their first shot and before Nick’s even finished shivering from the taste Louis is splashing another one out. They have three more in the end and Adele is playing Insomnia by Faithless and something must slide over Nick's face because Louis bobs up again and asks, "What is it?"

Nick squeezes his little half chewed wedge of lemon into his shot glass.

"Don’t tell me, you lost your virginity to Faithless!" Louis grins.

"No." Nick shakes his head, picks up the other lemon wedge where it's sitting on its little plate, squeezes it as well.

"Reminds you of someone but?"

Nick glances at Louis really quick, he's turned fully facing towards him, doesn't look like he's having a go.  There is no sarcastic twist to his mouth, instead his lips are wet and eyes bright. For the millionth time Nick deliberately doesn't think about how handsome he is.

"Yeah," Nick acknowledges.

Louis laughs a little, "It's the fucking worst, right? Break your heart, ruin your life, ruin your records." Louis is waving his hands as he speaks, he only does this when he's angry or trying to entertain his mates. Since that first day, when he'd tried to run him through with a broom handle, Nick has watched Louis' hands and the way he speaks with them, careless gestures that are somehow a little too entrancing. And Louis isn't angry now, so that means he's trying to entertain Nick

Nick splashes some more tequila into their shot glasses.

"Or just keep all your bloody records."

"He didn't. That's fucked. All of it? In Spain?" Louis takes his shot to punctuate his exclamation, "We should sail the fuck over there, get them back, lay siege!" He tears off the lemon with his teeth. Nick has to swallow.

"Alright, avenging pirate." He tries to joke, his tongue seems a little slow, "Got anyone we need to sort out for you?"

Louis presses his lips together, "Might as well be at the bottom of the ocean for all I know, that one. I'm well shot of him."

He's not though, Nick knows. He knows there's someone missing, he knows his name, he cleaned out that damn locker, knows it crops up in those stories that Louis' boys tell. Those stories that tail off or stop suddenly when Louis comes into the room. Louis looks flat and masklike for the first time in a week or so. Nick feels stupid, stupid and maybe drunk already, definitely drunk. But he doesn't want that. It turns him over a little bit to see that expression back on Louis' face, Nick has got used to having him joke a little, having him not look pissed off just at the fact Nick exists. But it's not Nick is it. It's this other thing, this other bloke. That's encouraging somehow.

"Fuck em," he says suddenly, "Fuck em so so so fucking much. None of this none of this! None of this tonight here in this place we made." He waves his arm out, hits his hand against the back of some girls' head and has to apologise. She doesn't seem to have even noticed but Louis is laughing.

"You have ridiculous hands."

"I don't," Nick looks at them, holds them palms facing up in front of him. He's turned now too, facing towards Louis, both of them leaning against the bar. Harry's there somewhere, cleaning up their mangled lemon, putting the bottle out of reach of club goers.

"You've got a fucking good point but absurd hands." Louis puts his on top of Nick’s. Just gently, just half his hands. Fingers on top of Nick's fingers and Louis’s thumb holding tight underneath. Nick stares at them sitting there, Louis nails are so short, bitten right down and his hands really are small. And warm.

"Look huge, unnecessary. Waste of fingers that is."

"Not a waste, I can do..." And Nick looks up at Louis' face, he's still looking down still studying their hands, all eyelashes and scruff and Nick loses his train of thought.  He was going to say something dumb, something dumb and flirty and he's flirting with Louis. "I can do all sorts of things, reach things, tie knots."

"Tie knots?" Louis looks up, incredulous but then smirking.

"Shoelaces."

"Ahh, thought you were getting kinky with me Nick." Louis looks at something down again, maybe Nick's lips. Nick is drunk, he knows, but he's sure Louis was looking at his lips. Adele mixes in _Crazy In Love_ and Louis looks up again, he's smiling at Nick and Nick's smiling back.

"Fuck em!"

"Fuck them!"  

"Let's have a dance Nick," Louis says in that way he has, not really asking but telling.

He grabs Nick's forearm, pulls him towards him and then as he turns and heads towards the crowded dance floor he lets his hand fall into Nick's.

Louis' hand is small and the same temperature as Nick's own and it's not tingles or anything but Nick wouldn't mind holding it for longer. But Louis has found Liam and there's a little group, some faces Nick thinks he's seen on other nights here, and round at their house and somewhere down in the midst of the movement Louis lets go of his hand.

Nick starts to dance.

 

It’s fucking brilliant. Nick hasn’t proper danced for ages. Just lights and people and every one having a fucking good time and that’s on them, they did this and Nick is singing along with Can't Blame the Moonlight which shouldn't work at all but Adele splices in Chemical Brothers and Nick loves it. Louis is smiling, lights flashing over his face but then he has his eyes closed and they dance for longer than Nick has since forever. Since before Matius.

They dance through Disclosure, Basement Jax, Nick feels like there was some Alice DJ which, maybe not, but this right now is Rihanna. Nick dances more.

At some stage Louis pops up with two bottles of Smirnoff Ice and it's sweet and sticky and there's no reason to go anywhere else. He might get a damn stitch. He's sweaty. He's laughing. He holds the cool glass of the bottle Louis brought him on his cheek, and then against his neck, slips another button of his shirt open and rolls the cool glass down and over his collarbone, notices Louis is watching him do it. He sort of stops moving for a moment, just holds the bottle against his chest, can't feel his heart for the beat of the music but that's ok. There's something in the way Louis is looking, something deliberate about it and It does something to Nick's stomach, makes his skin tingle a bit. There's the slightest smirk he gives Louis. Then Louis turns around to face towards the DJ booth, his hands up in the air. Nick dances more.

Adele is playing Oliver Heldens, which is possibly another unusual choice but there's no change in the amount of people dancing, and Nick's meant to be a punter tonight anyway, is a punter he thinks as Liam appears next to him again, dancing with his fingers in odd gun shapes and looking so happy to see Nick. He’s got a girl with him who Nick doesn’t think is Honey, although she looks a bit like her, she has a lot of very nice dark hair and Nick thinks he has seen her Harry’s before. She seems happy to see him and Louis and she's got snapchat on and Louis squeezes up next to him for the video, his hand grasping at Nick's side and wobbling as he reaches up to get his face in the frame. Nick puts his arm around him, pulls Louis in next to him and somehow ends up with his face half in his hair. He smells like fake flowers. it's quite endearing Nick thinks in a hazy sort of way as he pulls a face similar to the one he can see Louis making, tongue poking out, eyebrows high.

She shoots a lot of videos. Enough that by the time she’s done Adele is mixing a different track in when the little group starts to move apart. Louis is twisting around but Nick's still got his arm around him so now he's sort of half holding Louis, who's been yelling along with the music with Liam but as he turns he's looking at Nick and he does that thing where you blow your fringe up off your forehead and he keeps singing while staring at Nick, smiling and singing _'So put your arms around me tonight, let the music lift you up, like you've never been so high'_ and Nick can't hear Louis as such, but he's watching his mouth, it's a good mouth, so biting at times. Nick wonders if it'd be bitey. Or soft, Louis' top lip looks soft; no sharp points on his cupid's bow, just a symmetrical soft curve. Nick knows he's drunk, keeps reminding himself that he's drunk, but still, why is Louis all curves and edges – nothing that Nick can get a handle on but at the same time he wants to touch.

And as if he can read his mind Louis has is suddenly got his hands high on Nick's shoulders, still singing along with damn Camilla Cabello, still looking at Nick in a way that's disconcerting. ' _Ain't no crying in the club hey hey'_ he mouths along as Nick lets his hand fall down onto Louis waist, holding him in place. Louis leans back into it, lets Nick take his weight. Nick has to move a little closer to balance. He swallows. He feels like the hairs on his head standing up a little, like his flight or fight instincts are taking over a little, but at the same time as his skin feels all goose bumped.  He's worried that his quiff is deflating and that his face will be all red from the dancing.

Louis is suddenly closer, proper grasping at Nick's shoulders and so he can say in his ear, “ _it ain't true, ain't true, ain't true.”_

And it's not true, but it feels real, Louis feels real.

Nick turns his head and he can smell Louis' shampoo again. He lets his other hand fall to Louis' waist. There's no denying it now, he's holding him against him deliberately. It's hard not to squeeze too tight, not to pull him up against him proper. Louis sort of hasn't moved from where he was next to Nick's ear. Instead he just keeps his face there, his breath is hot and cool at the same time on Nick's sweaty skin. Louis' lips just ghosting over the hollow under his ear. It’s all only been a few bars of the song but Nick feels like every part of his body has been frozen for hours in some type of anticipation.

Then Louis speaks the lyrics into Nick’s neck, lips moving right against his skin, He's not kissing him but he might as well be. It’s too fucking intimate, the softness of his lips and the scratch of his beard. Nick has no idea what he’s even mouthing along to, finds it hard enough to understand these slurred singers, like Sia sometimes, Ariana Grande, Shit! Louis has his mouth where his neck meets his collarbone and it’s not fair and it’s all Nick can do not to angle his neck to try to get Louis to put his teeth in, instead he just shudders a breath out.

He's getting a little hard. Louis pulls back suddenly, completely hanging off him, his hands still on his shoulders, their lower bodies lined up against each other and there’s no way that he won’t feel that a little. Nick wants to put his hands on his arse and hoist him up a bit he thinks, staring down at Louis’ face. He’s mouthing _‘hey hey’_ and rolling his hips a little in rhythm and Nick can’t help but grin at him a little ruefully. He’s done the fuck for and Louis knows it.

That’s when Adele drops in _Horny_ and the way Louis’ face lights up is plain evil.

He knows what Louis is going to do before he even does it and he almost helps him to turn around. It shouldn’t work, Nick is way too tall, but he can bend at his knees a little and it’s worth it. Nick’s laughing because it is ridiculous, feels so good, Louis feels so good. His arse pressed right up against him and Louis’s hands in the air, they aren’t moving in a particularly co-ordinated way, Louis is just sort of randomly thrusting his hips back and forth and from side to side but it’s fine. It’s amazing really. Louis is supple, if unorganized, in the way he moves and Nick has his hand, palm flat on Louis’ stomach now and he can sort of control him a little better, keep him tight against his own body, grind his dick a little into Louis’ arse.

There’s utterly no pretence now about what they are doing, he wonders if there has been at all that night, wonders if maybe since they laid the floor it’s been a little inevitable.

He tips his head down, kisses the shell of Louis’ ear and gets his other hand so it’s higher round Louis’ body, his fingers landing on Louis’ nipple which is easy to feel through his soft t shirt. They are just grinding on each other now, Nick holds Louis’ body still and kisses under his ear, he’s got no hesitation at sucking at the skin there, and he can’t hear Louis over the music but he feels him gasp, feels him push back harder against him.

It’s too much for a club that they work at. That they manage, but fuck it they are lost in the crowd. Nick lets his hand move down, finds where Louis is hard trapped in his jeans. And that’s a rush, Louis hard for him. He slides his hand along the outline of his dick, Louis is a bit limp against him, Nick still sucking at his neck and just moving his hand along his hard cock.

“You’re so hot Lou.” Nick says hoping he can hear him. His fingers circling, flicking Louis’ nipple now, their hips moving gently. It’s intoxicating, Louis pliant against him, in this space where he’s usually so antagonistic. There is something in that that’s so consuming and tempting to push the boundary of. “You're so hard, can feel you, I could make you come right here couldn’t I?” Nick says right into the shell of his ear, “you’d let me wouldn’t you, let me slide my hand in your pants and work you over right here in the crowd. Right here on this spot where you were yelling at me earlier today.”

Louis pushes himself against Nick’s hand and makes another little noise. Nick has to swallow. He’s going to come in his pants himself rutting against Louis’ arse in a second. And as much as he’s into the idea of bringing Louis off right then and there, the lights flash pink across Louis’ face just as he turns to look at him gasping.

"Fuck you would too wouldn't you, dirty fucker." His eyes are hooded, he's looking at Nick's lips. And Nick thinks suddenly he needs to get him somewhere he can see him properly, doesn't want to waste the expression on Louis face to semi-darkness. Doesn’t want to make him come and not be able to watch Louis fall apart and fall open to him.

“Come on,” he mutters.

Drops a brief dry kiss to Louis’ lips and then pulls him out of the crowd, hand held tight as he sees his way through the moving bodies. Louis has a hand pulling at his shirt as well, as if he doesn’t want to be too far away from him and Nick spots Liam leaving the bar as they go past. Holding three drinks in his hands his eyes widen a little and he opens his mouth to yell something, but Nick doesn’t stop, he just pulls Louis around a group of girls and then punches in the code to the door to the hallway that leads to the back.

 

—…—

 

Nick’s got him up against the wall between the doors to the stock and staff rooms. Louis is so far up on his toes he’s not even sure he’s standing on the ground, Nick may have proper lifted him off the ground and that’s something. Louis likes it a bit.

Nick sucks a little harder on the skin under his jaw and Louis likes that a lot. He grinds forward as much as he can move, Nick’s leg is between both of his own and his hand is tight and hard, gripping at his waist. Louis has never really been with someone as tall as Nick. It’s, fuck, he wants to feel his dick he thinks suddenly and then can’t help himself, starts smiling, god he’s such an idiot.

“Oi, what?” Nick says into his chin. Presses a kiss there and pulls back, smiling at Louis in return.

“Just this, it’s good.” Louis says softly, hardly enunciating properly.Tipping his head a little further back asking for more kisses.

“Shit, you are...” Nick brings his hand up from where he’s grabbing his arm, puts his hand on Louis’ jaw and kisses him again. He’s lost Louis has, he felt it outside, it’d been fun, just sort of rubbing all over Nick, dancing, pretending nothing mattered. Feeling like nothing mattered. It feels a bit like this matters though.

“Nick, Nick.” Louis lets the hand that’s clutching at Nick’s shoulder, sweaty and a little damp under his palm, fall down and he pinches randomly at his chest to get his attention.

“Aye!” Nick is quick, has his wrist up against the wall in a moment as well, hips holding him even closer if possible. “Brat.” Nick breaths and his hips are moving and his mouth is slick and Louis can only kiss him back, lost to it. The bass is loud, and Louis can’t distinguish his heart beat from it.

When Nick pulls away he’s breathing heavy, and glances to his left. To the locker room. Louis can’t do this here. Wants to go home. Wants this to be more. It already is more.

“Come home.” He says impulsively, stomach lurching with panic about asking someone for something. He looks up, watches Nick’s face as his eyes open a little wider, he’s only lit by the fluorescent light coming from the doorway to the stockroom. The point of the top of his lip, Louis reaches a slow finger and ghosts a touch.

“Thank you.” Nick says. Which is an odd way of saying yes. But Louis will take it. He’s grinning like an idiot he can feel it.

“Come on, let’s get a taxi.” Louis pushes off from the wall, and as much as Nick had him caged in he lets him go easily. Follows him back out into the club. He keeps a hand on Louis at all times as they walk through the crowd.

The fact there is a crowd is amazing, it’s still jammed full of people, Adele’s going off, so many people dancing and he can’t see the bar for the two or three people deep group of punters waiting to be served. Which is good. He doesn’t need to meet Harry or Douglas or Fiona’s eyes right now. He can hear Nick’s voice right behind him singing, terrible pitch, ' _You know I dealt with you the nicest.'_

Louis can’t wait to kiss him again.

Nick’s hand wanders from Louis’ shoulder to his waist, to his arse and shoulder again. When they get out front, they step apart. Nick stops, says something to Paddy while Louis walks to the street, looks for a taxi to stop. 

He’s not got his coat and it’s fucking freezing. He looks back to Nick who’s not got his either. He’s coming over to him, he’s got stupid legs and it takes no time.

“It’s dead cold, want to hug you, you look frozen.”

Louis is breathing into his cupped hands. “Stop that taxi Nick.” He says. Wants to hug him too.

 

They sit right next to each other in the cab. They don’t keep making out. Nick doesn’t even put his arm around Louis or anything, but they squash up next to each other and Louis likes it. Nick has his phone out and holds it so Louis can see him scrolling the music tracks. Louis pokes at it when he sees Buzzcocks and Nick lets it play. He opens up instagram and films a video out the window, it’s only as they get to Lansdown Roundabout that Louis thinks maybe the lyrics are a little on the nose. Nick doesn’t seem to have any issues, he’s adding a sticker to his story and singing along _'And if I start a commotion...'_

But of course he doesn’t mind the track. No one's in love. No one is falling in love with anyone they shouldn’t. Again.

But then, because of course it does, it fades into _Fluorescent Adolescent._  Louis would know those drum beats in that intro anywhere.

Nick’s done messing round on his phone, he’s all looking at Louis again, holding his hand up hesitating before he brushes Louis’ fringe out of his eye gently, just a few fingers, he covers Louis’ hands with his other one, palm big and warm over the back of Louis.

“Get it in your fishnets” Nick says out loud not singing along with Alex Turner. Louis feels like his cheeks are going pink even though he’s still cold. Not even sure why.

Nick leans in, a one sided smirk, “Would love you in fishnets.”

Blood rushes to his dick again. NIck's joking he knows, it's just there’s something in the intent, like all of a sudden it got a little desperate between them again. Fucking Arctic Monkeys.

 

**—…—**

 

Nick had been a little worried that when they got back to the house it’d be odd, that Louis would take him into the sitting room, offer him a tea. But as soon as Louis has unlocked the door he’s turning back around and got his arms around Nick’s neck again. This kiss is a little different though, slower somehow. Deeper than Nick is used to. It makes his dick ache. He’s not been able to get it down since the club and he feels desperate and like it’s all too much, but Louis seems different now.

He pulls back and his lips are a bit swollen and his eyes are very bright and Nick swallows.

“Louis, I’m so hard.” He says, almost embarrased.

Louis grins, fiendish. He’s wicked. He grinds his hips against Nick’s and Nick makes a small noise of frustration.

“Oh my god, enough.” He pushes the door back open and grabbing Louis hand pulls him inside behind him.  

They both stop and kick their shoes off, wet from the street. Louis looks up at Nick faux innocence on his face, “Want a cup of tea?” he says sweet as Brighton Rock, “stop off and have a penguin biscuit?”

Nick looks at him darkly, trying to stop his lips twisting in a smile, “Come the fuck on Louis.” And he reaches for his hand again.

 

The light is out at the top of the stairs and he waits for Louis to go in front, follows him into his room where he turns on a bedside light and then starts picking up random bits of clothing from the floor and throwing them onto other bits of the floor.

Nick hesitates, “What are you doing?” He asks. “Why are you so organised but also so messy?”

Louis stops and looks at him straight away, eyes narrowed, “Why are you always a bitch to me?”

“Me?” Nick holds his hands up, steps forward and putting his hands on Louis’ shoulders turns him so he’s facing him, “Sorry, I just mean you are so precise at work, with your uni and...”

Louis’ tongue swipes over his lip quickly, “I don’t like picking up after myself.” He breathes a sharp little breath in, “Is this alright? You want this?”

And Nick does. Nick wants Louis, wants to be with Louis like this, in his room. This prickly loyal man. Nick wonders if he knows how good he is, he knows he doesn’t. He brings his hands up and cups Louis’ face and kisses him.

It stops being sweet and starts being dirty very quickly, both of them not really able to stop moving their hips and Louis has his hands scrabbling between their bodies and pulling at Nick’s shirt buttons. He has to stop so he can undo them.

“Take off your t shirt?” He asks and Louis looks down as if he didn’t know what he was even wearing and still watching Nick, as he undoes his shirt buttons, Louis pulls his long sleeved tee over his head.

He's slight but lovely, bit goose bumped skin but tanner than Nick, body hair light and his nipples and tattoos are dark and Nick wants to touch him a lot.

“I get cold, I’ve got to get into bed.” He says crossing his arms over his stomach and Nick can’t have that, can’t have Louis being cold or hiding his body. Nick moves back to him instantly, he puts his hands on the button of Louis’ jeans, “Okay?”

“Yeah, good, it’s all good.” Louis answers, he’s got a hand on Nick’s chest, fingertips warm and Nick bends to kiss him again. It becomes a bit of a rush then. Nick gets distracted by the kissing and Louis ends up pulling down his jeans and reaching for the button on Nick’s while Nick has his mouth against his neck, kissing down the side of it and he pulls Louis in and kisses him hard at the spot where his neck meets his collar bone.

Louis’ breath is a little jagged, he gasps, rolls his hips into Nick and so Nick sucks again, skims his teeth over his skin, has a hand in Louis’ hair and one still pulling inefficiently at his own jeans. They sort of turn and stumble to the bed and then before he can put Louis onto it, cover him so he wouldn’t be cold, so Nick could feel his body warm and real beneath him, Louis has pushed him down so he’s sitting on the edge and he’s getting on his knees between Nick’s spread legs.

“Shit.” Nick breathes out. The concept is enough. Louis puts a hand on either one of his thighs and looks up with that same fiendish smile.

“You have ridiculous legs too. Fingers and legs.”

“Okay.” Nick nods.

 

He kisses them then, so Nick thinks maybe Louis doesn’t think they are that ridiculous. It tickles, Louis’ mouth hot and a little rough, Nick’s clutching at the bed beneath him Louis’ fingertips digging into his thigh while his mouth stings and soothes. He wants to touch his dick very badly, but he feels like maybe he’s not meant to.

“Louis, Lou.” He says almost as a whine.

Louis looks up from under his lashes and Nick does touch then runs a single finger along his cheekbone while he watches Louis watch him. Eyes dark and uncompromising, he turns his head suddenly, noses at the palm of Nick’s hand and sucks his finger into his mouth, closes his eye for a moment and then opens them again. Tongue hot and swirling around Nick’s finger. Fuck. Nicks hips actually move at that.

“Shit.” He says intelligently.

Louis pulls off a little, eye contact impeccable, “Get your pants off Grimshaw.”

Nick almost laughs, but he’s afraid it’d be a sob, “Yeah, ok.”

He lifts his bum up and hooks his fingers into the elastic, has to sort of hold them out over his hard cock and he hisses at the contact, Louis is watching him the whole time, he leans back, lets Nick close his legs so he can get the damn pants down his calfs but as soon as they are hanging round one ankle Louis pushes his thighs open again, then looks up at him.

“I’m want to give you a blow job, is that okay?”

Nick does sob he thinks. “Yes, fuck yes. Please, be amazing.”

Louis is smiling at him amused, “Play it cool Nick, just checking. And then Louis’ hand is on his dick, well both of them really. Although is it his hand, he sort of noses at it, a tentative lick that makes Nick’s legs sort of jolt and then Louis licks his palm and wraps it round the base and then licks around the head of Nick’s cock, flattens his tongue and licks up the vein on the underside. Nick swears.

Louis swallows him suddenly and Nick stops himself from pushing up further into the heat of his mouth. He breathes out another broken curse and puts a hand in Louis’ hair. “So fucking good Lou.” He manages to scratch out, practically feeling his eyes rolling back as he feels the head of his dick pushing at Louis’s throat.

  
When Nick looks down next, Louis is looking up at him. His pupils are so dark and eyes a little wet. Nick’s not forcing him to go so deep, he;s doing it himself. HIs hand chasing his mouth when he pulls off and then as he goes down again he shuts his eyes, lashes fanned out dark. It’s beautiful and dirty and Nick is so lost.

His hand is still in Louis’ hair, a loose heavy touch and Louis very slightly nudges into it and Nick responds by adding a little more pressure, instinctively clenching his hand, he tangles his fingers a little more in Louis’s hair, tugging a tiny bit which makes Louis moan around Nick's cock. He pulls away suddenly, and never looking away from Nick’s face he licks a broad stripe across his free hand and sucks wetly at his index and middle finger. Nick just wants his mouth on his dick again. He feels a bit crazed with the need for it, but he can’t look away from Louis. There is a tendril of spit as Louis pulls his fingers from his mouth and then with a slight smirk he’s holding Nick’s cock out of the way and leaning down to gently  sucking his balls, one after the other into his hot mouth, his wet palm cupping them while his slicked up fingers rub underneath, his other right hand still working Nick over, building up pace and Nick’s unabashed, thrusting into Louis’ grasp

Nick’s muttering something but he doesn’t know what. Praise. It’s amazing. It’s wet and hot and everything it too much and Nick tells Louis how good he is, how pretty he looks how amazing it feels. But also he could just be moaning. He’s not sure.

Louis swipes his thumb over the head of NIck’s cock which is slick with pre come and that’s when he pulls away from NIck’s balls.

“Getting so wet,” He says and his voice sounds a little rough. Nick can feel more liquid rush under the surface of his skin, spilling out of his slit at the thought that it was his dick in the back of Louis’s throat that caused that roughness.

“Lou, don’t stop,” he gets out, his own voice strained with need, “bit more.”

“Yeah?” Louis says “Show me,” And he nudges up into where Nick is still holding Louis’s hair.

The noise Nick makes is guttural as he pushes Louis down onto him again. He doesn’t force Louis, he’s not fucking his mouth, but he doesn’t let go of the pressure he’s applying either to the top of his head either.

“You like it deeper hey,” he gasps, utter nonsense spilling from his mouth. “So good at that Lou, so good for me. T-take it.” And then suddenly he feels the coiled heat moving, “Fuck, I’m gonna come.”

His attempt at talking Louis through stutters out as Louis’s clever fingers, still working his balls, combined with the feel of his mouth get too much. Louis makes a sort of encouraging cut of moan in response and closes his eyes as he swallows Nick down again.

 

Nick can feel the hard lump in his stomach that catches on fire and spreads to his spine, he jutters a little and his hand clenches, pulling Louis’s hair properly for the first time as he comes, spilling into Louis mouth.

At first Louis doesn’t back away, keeps his mouth wrapped round Nick, but as Nick shudders through a second wave, making a softer but still slightly desperate sounding moan Louis pulls off a little as if he can’t swallow quickly enough. Nick looks down, has to blink his eyes to adjust a little as if he’s lost the power of sight.

Louis opens his mouth just slightly almost as if he’s not sure NIck will be ok with him doing so, and Nick can see his own come on Louis's tongue. Using his free hand that had been supporting him on the edge of the bed he rubs his softening dick along Louis’s lips and Louis swallows and then gently runs his tongue round the head of it as Nick gasps and shivers.

There’s a bit of come on Louis’s chin and Nick swipes it with his finger and Louis turns his face and sucks at it.

Nick groans, “Proper filthy you are.” And sinks to his own knees, his mouth falls on Louis hungrily and as they kiss Nick can taste himself. Bitter and somehow so hot having Louis taste like that.

Louis is kissing him a little desperately. Nick loves the way he grabs at his shoulders, the way he’s given himself to what is happening. Nick needs to make him feels good. He wraps his hand round Louis’ cock and Louis hisses in response, stops kissing him but stays close, clutches even harder.

“I won’t last.” He breathes out almost into NIck’s mouth.

“Good don’t want you too, want you to come, did such a good job, made me feel so good Louis. Love your mouth, love your hands, you made me come so hard. You looked so filthy, my come on your tongue, you wanted that didn’t you? Wanted to show me what you did, wanted me to know you did that? Well I know Louis, I felt it. Felt amazing, you're amazing.”

Nick doesn’t stop talking. He doesn’t know why, it’s instinctive. He wants to praise him, tell him how good he is and Louis seems to want it, he’s making little whines with each word Nick   and his fingers clutch at Nick so much they hurt and then he’s coming, a broken moan and Nick dives in his mouth kisses him even while he’s moving his hand still grasping Louis’ cock and letting him fuck into his come a little.

“So good Louis,” he tells him as he kisses his cheek, so close to those wet lashes, and then Louis laughs.

“Get your hand off it hurts.”

 

And so Nick stops touching, wraps his free arm around Louis’ back and holds him, Louis drops his forehead to Nick’s shoulder and breathes deeply.

“Should clean up and get under the blanket, it’s cold.” Louis says and kisses Nick’s collar bone.

So they do. They shuffle to the bathroom together, Nick cupping his dick with his hand covered in Louis’ come and Louis turns the sink tap on. They make eye contact in the mirror and Louis smiles and it turns into a huffing type of a laugh and that’s good Nick thinks.

Sex that takes you a bit aback with it’s intensity and then a laugh. That’s good.

 

Nick has to go outside while Louis takes a piss, and it’s probably a bit creepy but he stands on the landing, but he doesn’t want to go back in Louis’ room without him. And also just kind of wants to be near him.

He goes to the toilet himself and washes his hand again and when he opens the door Louis is there waiting. He raises an eyebrow

“Thought what if you came out and Niall was here or something.”

“So you were going to ward him off with your frozen naked body.” Nick is amused.

“I _am_ frozen.” Louis replies a little haughtily and goes straight back to his room. Nick follows shutting the door behind him. There seems to be no question that he’d leave, which is good, he;s still a bit drunk and he really likes Louis and he wants to hug him. And maybe, he thinks as he watches his arse walk towards his bed get to touch that in the morning or something.

 

They arrange themselves carefully, or at least Nick does, Louis lays down on his back and waits till Nick is next to him and then rolls onto his side and looks at him expectantly.

Nick can feel his mouth twitch, “What?” He bites down on a smile, only Louis could be demanding just by rolling over.

“You are hard to work out but actually I think that might be that I just didn’t want to see you as you are.”

Nick lets the words wash over him a little. It’s as much of a sorry for being a prickly bastard as he’ll get from Louis he knows, but he’s not sure he needs it as such. He’s not sure he is himself down here.

He worms an arm under Louis’ body and pulls him in a little. It’s nice that Louis allows it, his head on Nick’s chest, it’s probably a bit too intimate.

 

“I’m still a bit pissy still I think,” Nick starts carefully.

“Me to.” Louis agrees, “probably be right hungover tomorrow. Not that I don’t know what I’m doing or whatever.” He adds quickly.

“But I’m not normally so, quiet you know? I feel like I am a bit quieter since Spain...” Nick fades away. He doesn't even know what he's trying to say.

“That’s okay Nick, fuck-it right off remember.” Nick can feel he’s smiling, can feel his cheek on his chest.

And shit that’s a thought. Louis resting, on him. It makes him feel a little too full.

“You're pretty fucking fit.” He says instead of what he was thinking.

Louis stretches his legs out along Nick’s, he can feel his toes digging in just above his ankle.

“I don’t hate how you're tall, bit big and stuff.” His hand is wandering over Nick’s chest, a thumb gently swipes across Nick’s nipple. “I do have your chest hair in my mouth though.” He makes pretend spitty noises.

Nick squeezes him a little tighter, “Hey do you like the rugs?” He asks.

They talk a little longer, slowly. Louis does like the rugs, he’s sorry he wasn’t back in time to go looking for furniture but he needed to spend some time with his Mum. They talk about their Christmases. They talk about the first gig they went to see. They talk about the name of Liam’s girlfriend. They talk about if Nick will only live in places by the sea. They talk about how a dog is the best pet.

They fall asleep.

 

It’s cold, that’s why he wakes up. It’s cold and his head hurts. He blinks up at the most horrid light pink coloured ceiling and god, poor Louis, pink everywhere he goes. He turns his head to look at him, Louis’ nose right up against Nick’s shoulder, his head isn’t on a pillow but his free hand is on Nick’s chest and it’s satisfying in the strangest way. Lovely really. He’s nice asleep. Pointy and soft all at once. Nick wants to touch the line of his cheekbone always.

He lifts Louis' hand and kisses the back of his index and pointer fingers and then shifts himself carefully. Slides out and gingerly picks up his jeans and shirt and shuffles and shrugs them on. He needs to piss and find some water, maybe he can bring a coffee up to Louis.

 

He stares at the shower over the bathtub with longing while he pisses, nice fresh water always helps to sort his head out, he’s always too slow on his feet until after he has a shower. He washes his hands and splashes water over his face and begins some ineffectual rubbing of toothpaste against his gums when there is a perfunctory knock on the door and it is pushed open.

“Shit! Nick!” Harry shouts and starts laughing, “Sorry! You scared me.” He grins, tired eyes and his hair half over his face, ”scuse me.” And he slides past and starts to piss.

“Oi! Harry, too small a bathroom for that.” Nick protests, his finger still in his mouth.

“Did you sleep on the sofa?” Harry asks, “didn’t see you when I got in, I was so tired though. Went so well. Fiona was great too, such a great boss, so organised. Adele did so well, Liam too. It was so fun, I think I kissed Douglas?”

Nick rinses his mouth out. “You what?”

“I mean I did kiss him.” Harry bumps his hip against Nick’s reaches into to wash his hands, come back down and I’ll tell you about it hey?” He wiggles his eyebrows in the mirror and slides past on his way out again.

“Shit.” Nick says to his reflection and bends down to rinse his mouth out. He’ll have to go wake Louis, see what he wants to do. Nick doesn’t want to hide what happened, it feels like something more. Something big, and Louis is hard to predict but Nick is certain he will want some space, some privacy for whatever this is with the two of them. He's scared of upsetting him, fearful of telling Harry something Louis isn't ready for him to know. Nick doesn't want to do anything to fuck this up.

Nick straightens up and goes back out onto the landing and there’s Harry, jumping down the stairs from his attic and throwing a nice big jumper at him.

“Got’cha that, come on, I’m going to boil the kettle.”

And Nick has no choice. He pulls the hoodie over his head and follows Harry down the stairs.

 

**—…—**

 

When Louis wakes up his head hurts. His limbs have that heavy unrested feeling and as he wiggles his toes his feet sting a little. He rolls over onto his back and feels out blindly for his phone. What he picks up has a pink cover with a rubber edge. It’s Nick’s phone.

Louis lets his head drop back onto the pillow. A small smile is on his face. He leaves the phone sitting on his chest and stretches, arches his back and runs his hands over his chest, scratches his tummy. Nick must’ve got up. But he hasn’t left, hasn’t run off. He’s probably gone to the bathroom, maybe he’s fetching Louis a cup of tea. That’d be a perfect.

Louis lies in bed a little longer, listens for noise in the house, can hear the TV very faintly, can’t think why Nick would get up and have to watch TV though, Louis’ head doesn’t feel too great, but he’s also a little alive with what happened last night, He doesn’t think Nick could be feeling any better. The TV watching is a bit odd.

He gets up and puts on some joggers, goes out to the bathroom. He pisses and cleans his teeth, smushes his hair so it’s not so flat and gives the bags under his eyes up for a lost cause, and feeling sort of excited butterflies in his stomach, and telling himself he’s being a bit of a git for being excited, he goes down stairs. Smiling a little despite himself.

 

“Hey Lou, Nick slept on the sofa, couldn’t get a cab, I’m making tea you want one?” Harry says nervously, as if he's covering for something. He’s not making tea, he’s sitting next to Nick on the couch. They are sitting under a rug together. Both of their stupid legs stuck out on the coffee table and mugs of tea in their hands. Nick in Harry’s blue jumper.

Louis' heart does a funny stutter and his butterflies settle into something a bit more solid, something a little sick feeling.

"Slept on the sofa," Louis repeats flatly. "Well of course he did. Great."

"Lou, don’t be rude, it's not that big a deal. Thought you two were good now, all that building and stuff and hey! Last night was bloody amazing," Harry barrels on as he gets up and goes into the kitchen.

"Last night was amazing," Louis repeats again, stares at Nick, who can’t maintain eye contact.

 

His heart feels a little too fast, he’s angry. But also, fuck. What is happening. He feels like maybe his mouth is pulling a little, turning downwards. He looks at Nick’s face, he’s got bags under his eyes and a mark on his neck and last night he told Louis he was like nothing else. So why is he sitting on the sofa snuggled up with Harry and why hasn’t he told Harry he was with Louis last night? And why is he looking from Harry to Louis with an odd nervous look on his face?

He must be ashamed, not want to tell Harry about them. Must have just been a quick fuck for fancy Ibiza Nick. Just a distraction. Jesus Louis thinks, probably really was getting off on the idea that he had Louis like that.

Louis feels a little too hot all of sudden, has to grab the back of the chair, his hands feel sweaty on the wooden back of the thing. He thinks how good it felt to give up last night, to let Nick take control, and he’d been so gentle, teasing still, but Louis had felt good, had felt like Nick thought he was special, felt like Nick had felt what he’d felt; that what they had was a little like nothing else. He’s a fucking fool.

A distraction. That’s what he’d told it to Nick as after all, ‘fuck them’ he’d yelled at Nick. And Nick had fucked him. Maybe not proper fucked, but yeah. Well Louis feels proper fucked. Feels sick. And like he’s going to cry or scream, his mouth keeps wobbling and Nick keeps looking at Harry who’s still talking.

“Honestly, if we’ve got that many through the door after only two weeks, it’s amazing, and word is really spreading, imagine if we could open the side room up.” Harry is chatting away.

 

Louis throws Nick’s phone over to him, doesn’t even wait to see if it lands on his lap, just turns and goes back upstairs, he’s running by the end, jumping up the last few risers in a rush, his eyes hot and he’s breathing harshly. It’s so stupid. He’s so stupid. He goes into the bathroom because he feels sick, but instantly turns and goes into his room. His fucking room. Where they...

He grabs a pillow off the bed and pulls the case off it quickly, chucks the duvet on the ground. He needs to get into bed, just wants to lay there and be still and go to sleep but not on those sheets. Jesus. He reaches over and grabs the fitted sheet and starts ripping it off and that’s when he sobs and his arms just give out a little and he lets himself fall onto the mattress, hits his nose as he lands and then turns his head, breathing strange loud gasping breaths. Not crying, but it’s desperate and he almost wishes he would cry.

 

By the time he hears the front door shut and Harry has climbed back upstairs and knocked on his bedroom door Louis is calm. He’s still lying on a half pulled off fitted sheet but he’s got enough wherewithal to not answer Harry’s knock.

He’s a bit numb. A bit confused. He’s obviously been waiting too long to get over him and his body or mind or some other faulty part of him has betrayed himself completely and just overacted and clung to the first dick that came along. He’s cross with himself that he let it be so easy for Grimshaw, but fuck it. If he’s going to act like nothing happened then so is Louis. Because nothing did happen.

Meaningless hook-up. Nothing.

It wasn’t hadn’t been what Louis had thought it was. Felt it was.

He rolls over and burrows his face a little more into the pillow that was left on the bed. It smells like Nick.

 

**—…—**

 

**January**

 

Nick can’t get Louis alone. It should be easy. But it’s not. Harry is always there, or Douglas or Jade or Liam. Or Louis is not at home when Nick calls by to ‘see Harry’ knowing full well Harry is on a photography shoot at Studland Beach. Or Niall comes by to fill in shift at the last minute because Louis ‘got held up at placement.’ Which fine. That can happen. But if Louis should have told him himself. And apparently he can't even can’t even text him about fucking work.

Nick has spent a long time looking, and deliberately not looking at his phone waiting for Louis to text him back.

He’d messaged him before he’d even left his house that Sunday. Hoping he could sneak away upstairs and explain what happened. But Louis left him on unread and when sometime on Monday he did read, it he didn’t deign to reply.

Nick had got annoyed then, he’d written a curt message saying that there was a reason why the morning was odd but if Louis didn’t want to be grown up enough to hear it then that was his problem.

 

Which Elgar had pointed out had actually been a bit childish himself but fuck it.

 

Louis replied two days later with a text about a change of time for the kegs to be delivered.

 

Nick ached with it. It’d been a blur. Not that he can’t remember it, he remembers fine. Maybe it’d be better if he’d been blackout drunk, not remembered a thing.

But Louis was fit and the sex had been hot and then they lay there and it was nice. He’d felt on the precipice of something even though he’d been laying flat on his bed. With Louis all soft and hard and warm and next to him.

 

He wants to talk to Harry but he can't. He messages Aimee of course and she says just to talk to him face to face. But, Nick thinks as he walks back into the office after Niall has shown up to cover Louis’s shift, Aimee has no idea how avoidant Louis can be.

As one week bleeds into the next the only time he does see Louis for any length of time is when Nick is up in the DJ booth. Thursday nights are especially good. Louis is always happy. Singing with the music and pouring drinks. Laughing with whoever he’s working with that night, Douglas or Harry or Jade.

Nick plays _You Stole the Sun from my Heart_ , sings arse instead of heart as he sings along and puts up an insta story of the pretty full dance floor. He also plays _An Honest Mistake_ because no one ever called him subtle.

 

They are left alone after close that night, Nick collecting glasses and Louis washing down the bar. Both of them tired and Nick’s left some music on to fill in the silence. He’s singing along when Louis calls out, “Do you play anything other than fucking _Faded_?”

“Do you do any actual cleaning? I swear to god that hotdog bun has been stuck under that sofa there for two weeks.”

“That’s not even my job? And fuck you Nick.”

“Fuck you too.” Nick says half heartedly. Then goes and presses repeat.

So that went well.

 

The thing is, he can feel Louis watching him, catches him at it sometimes. Sometimes he’ll laugh at a joke Nick makes during setup. And he’s not rude or dismissive in front of anyone any more.

They have another staff meeting, because Nick wants to check everyone is okay with how it’s got busier, see if anyone has any ideas apart from sky sports - thanks Niall, and just because he likes getting them all together, it’s fun, they are a good bunch of people.

At the meeting Louis is maybe a little subdued, but he’s also generous, Nick hears him as he’s passing Nancy’s shandy to her. She says something about how she’s still stunned at how well the floor came up that Louis built and he’s quick to say ‘it’s down to Nick though, never would have happened without him and he did as much work as me you know.’ And Nick thinks it’s as nice as he’s heard Louis be about him and he feels a bit warm about that.

Then a bit later that same meeting, which has descended into drinks and Nick and Harry and Douglas watching across the room as Adele is shows Jade how to mix, her arms around Jade and a lot of whispering in her ear for what's meant to be an educational experience Nick points out.

For some reason Matty’s observations of the flirtation in front of them is to tell Nick that his DJing is ‘derivative’ and ‘smacks of the bourgeois’ and Louis who is walking past right at that moment just spills his beer right on Matty’s head.

It's amazing.

Matty was sitting facing the other way, he’s not to know Louis didn’t trip on the edge of the rug, and in the chaos afterwards Denise is too busy happily pointing out the way the beer just rolls off the fabric guarded velveteen sofa for anyone to to pay much head to it. But Nick was watching Louis. And Louis doesn’t look at him afterwards, doesn’t acknowledge it in any way, but Nick knows he didn’t trip.

 

**Feburary**

 

But then a few nights after that Aimee spends the afternoon at the hairdressers.

 

 **_Aimee;_ ** _I’m worried Nick. Remeber when we werejust out of uni and if you got sad you’d just be round ours all the time, never alone. Now it’s like you did it deliberat. Elgar said you’d come home and Ian did too juts to leave it but pixi and me got our hair done and i drank the free champagne and i just want to say and this is a few months late you shoudl come home i know your hiding but i see you there youre not hidden!!!! and I love you._

 

Nick sends her a couple of love hearts and a picture of a box of paracetamol with 'for the morning' written under it and stares past the TV for a long time that night. He thinks you probably can feel being lonely right down to your bones, that it’s not just something in your head, but something that’s proper in your body as well. And he thinks about how he didn’t go to London because he was embarrassed after Matías. Thinks about Elgar telling him he might as well 'put your heart in it a little.'

The next morning he joins a gym. And two nights after that he goes out for dinner with Fiona and her boyfriend, and the night after that he thinks _fuck it_ and stops avoiding Harry and when he asks him to come over to have a smoke and family dinner and watch a movie and listen to him cry about his artistic vision for his final project that is nowhere near being realised Nick says yes. He might have started out hiding Bournemouth but avoiding people altogether is not his game, it’s Louis’.

 

Harry has a house party for his birthday. They have it on a Sunday night instead of family dinner and Nick goes over in the afternoon and helps Liam and his mate Andy, who's been doing live lights for them on Thursday through Saturday, get the DJ setup sorted and hang some lights. He also sets up a little smoke machine and googles how to build a fire which they are, against his advice, apparently going to do inside two old washing machine drums. He leaves Liam and Niall out in the back garden carefully positioning kindling inside the bloody things and heads into the kitchen to tell Harry he’s popping home to get changed. He’s just in the little laundry beside the kitchen and he can hear Louis’ voice, raised a little.

“If you’d just fucking let me sort out your bike for you in the first place.” Louis is saying all frustrated.

“Lou that’s stupid, the bike is fine, it’s just...”

“You paid him at least a hundred quid too much and I’d said I was going to sort it out.”

“Fuck!” Harry sort of exclaims and there is a bang, like he’s slapped the table or something. “You don’t have to always do everything you know!  I can buy a bloody bike, Niall can sort out hiring a bus for the away games without you getting quotes, Liam can plan his trip to Marbella without you coming up with the best boutique hotels, fuck Zayn could get a job and move...”

“Fuck you Styles.” Louis has cut in then.

Nick’s frozen.

“No! It’s shit Louis! Look at the way you are at the club, the way you are with Nick! Nick did bloody everything you had in your fucking plan, it’s all going so well and you can barely speak to him, I thought maybe it was getting better, thought maybe in the start it was just that you were a bit depressed when you got back from summer, a bit protective of what would happen, what it would mean to us all. But are you just that bitter? Is that it? You are just so controlling that you can’t stand anyone else who manages to get stuff done without you?”

“Don’t fucking talk about Nick.” Louis’ voice is very low.

“You treat him like shit.”

“Well he is shit. And so are you. Fuck!” This doesn’t have much heat in it. But Nick can hear movement and he turns and runs back outside, only just getting a safe distance from the back door when Louis bursts out through it, stops dead when he sees him and then just says “Fuck.” And turns and goes back inside.

 

Nick goes out the side gate, he messages Harry that’s he’s gone home to get ready and he walks for about five minutes before he sits down and calls for a taxi.

He should probably buy a car and stop spending the money Matías paid him for his half of the club on being driven around he thinks as he is driven home. He tries to write a shopping list in his mind, skips and skips and skips through his playlist on his phone, but his mind keeps going back to the way Louis looked that day when Harry came into the club with his new bike. Nick doesn’t think he was annoyed, he thinks he’d looked hurt.

 

He showers and puts on some nice moisturiser and tries to get into a good mood to celebrate the best mate he has in this town. He puts on his new very expensive, possibly a bit silly trainers and a white shirt with a splotchy pattern and it’s only been two weeks at bloody spin class but he feels alright.

He has to run back inside and grab Harry’s present but by the time he's back in another taxi, this time collecting Fiona and her boyfriend on the way, he feels okay.

There’s already a lot of people at the house when they get there, Fiona spilling out of the cab mid cackle and Nick the same. Her boyfriend pays the fare and leads the way inside. Liam is DJing and as Nick is making his way inside he mixes Usher into Future. Of course.

He finds Harry dancing where the sofa normally sits in the lounge room, Nick spins him around and Harry hugs him hello exuberantly.

Nick has few beers and some type of shot that Adele concocts saying delightedly that it will 'put hair on his chest.' Harry barks out a laugh and reaches over undoes his shirt buttons then.

"He's well hairy Adele!" He says happily. Nick bats his hands away and takes the glass when Adele pours him another.

 

He’s been dancing for ages when he sees Louis. He’s wearing a t shirt with the arms cut off and sitting up on the bench that separates the kitchen from the dining table. His hairs styled up off his forehead and he’s sucking a fucking sherbet ice and Nick realises he’s got a new scenario that makes his dick semi-hard.

He starts walking towards him without even thinking. Louis sees him coming, he leans back on one hand, the other still holding the iced lolly and he opens his fucking legs. So Nick stands between them.

“You look,” he stops. He was going to say Louis looks like his new wet dream, but that’s gross. Louis just smirks at him anyway and holds the stupid thing out to him.

“Want a suck?” He offers.

And Nick does, but not that of that. And because he’s the worst, that he does say, “Love a suck, but not of your sherbet.”

Which is pretty cringe but no one’s mentioning wet dreams so it’s not as bad as it could have been. And he’s also stealing the the thing out of Louis’ hand and sucking it anyway so nothing makes sense. But also Louis is letting him stand between his legs and is speaking to him so pretty much nonsense all round.

“This is cold.” Nick says and gives it back to Louis, puts his hand on Louis’ exposed upper arm, his bicep is small but nicely shaped, fits well in his palm, “Aren’t you cold?”

"I had a bit of a pill, it's shit, not happy or anything, just made 'm mouth dry. You have all your chest out tonight.” Louis observes and looks up at him. “Wanna go upstairs?”

 And Nick does.

 

Louis leads the way. He holds Nick’s hand and pulls him after him and Nick sees Harry seeing them, the look of surprise on his face. He’s standing with Liam, probably begging him to play something that Harry actually likes, and Liam doesn’t look surprised at all but Harry looks shocked.

There’s a chorus of cheers from the people waiting on the landing for the loo when they push past and Louis shuts his door behind them and that makes Nick a bit embarrassed for some reason. Louis is crowding him up against the door and kissing him. He’s still got the stupid iced thing in his hand and Nick has to grab his wrist and hold it to stop it from getting everywhere.

Louis pulls off breathing hard.

“Throw this thing away.” Nick laughs.

Louis turns and drops it in a tea cup that’s sitting on his desk, he turns on his bedside lamp and starts kicking his shoes off.

Nick moves a little way in from the door and watches for a moment. Louis’ hair falling over his forehead a little, the sides seem shorter.

“Did you get a haircut? I like it.”

He looks up, “Yeah, one of the men on the organising committee is a barber, he did it yesterday.”

“Is it going well, placement?” Nick asks.

Louis is undoing the button of his jeans now but he stops, cocks his head a little to the side, “Come on Nick, we don’t need to talk, come over here.”

“I want to talk.” Nick says, wishes he had a beer. “I have been trying to talk to you for almost four weeks.”

“It’s just rebound stuff, fill the gap, fuck them right off, that’s what we said I get it Nick. Nothing to talk about.” Louis talks in a rush, he’s moving his fingers as he does and looking anywhere but at Nick’s face. Nick feels his bones a little heavy again. Is that what it was. Has he been acting like an idiot. Thought it was all something much more than it was. He doesn’t think so.

“That’s not what I want.”

“You couldn’t even tell Harry!” Louis says suddenly, “you were too ashamed!”

“No I wasn’t.” Nick starts.

“Don’t bother Nick. Do you want to do this or what?” And something cracks a little in his voice, Nick looks at him properly.

“Louis I want you, would do anything you wanted.” And Louis interrupts him by kissing him again. Nick grabs both his wrists this time and steps backwards while he holds Louis still.

“I proper like you Louis and I’m not ashamed of it.”

Louis stares at him a moment, eyes wide and lips pink and wet. He’s beautiful.

“Can you go Nick?” He says finally. And Nick might say stupid stuff but he’s not going to stay in someone’s bedroom without them wanting him to.

“Yeah, okay. But I mean it Lou.”

“You’re not pining over that bloke in Ibiza anymore?” Louis says sitting down on his bed.

Nick turns back around, “No. Pining, maybe, but not pining over a bloke in Ibiza.” He laughs a bit, “and I wasn't ever really pining over him I think. Just bruised by the whole thing really.”

“What happened?”

Nick takes a breath, “Um, I went for a holiday, met a guy, moved there, all my friends and family said not to, said not to a lot. We bought a club, it got big, it was great, we had money, did a fair bit of drugs, it got messy, cheating that stuff. I mean I was pretty open to swapping or whatever but he fell proper in love with someone else. Woke up one day and he had this very nice offer to buy me out of everything, send me home with a cheque, I didn’t see that coming. I thought I’d given up so much, he’d know he was everything and then I felt like I was just a business deal, or an employee being let go.”

Louis sort of nods at the end of this, “Expendable.”

“Yeah.” Nick agrees.

“I think I might lie down.” Louis says. It's not an invitation, so Nick moves towards the door and stops, turns and looks at him.

“I want to go out to dinner or something Louis.” He says and somehow that’s more exposing than telling him about Matías.

 

**—…—**

 

The morning after Harry’s party is Harry’s actual Birthday. Despite his hangover, and the fact that it takes him five minutes to find the toaster in the wreckage that is their post-party kitchen, Louis makes him toast and tea and takes it up to his room. He knocks with his knee and finds Harry spread out on his bed getting woken up by Douglas.

Louis takes the tea and toast back to his own bed. Tries not to think too much about the image of two fit boys giving each other head but fails, and then of course thinks about Nick.

His cheeks go hot. He’d had half a pill and too many beers. Pulling Nick up here and then that horrid conversation. After that fight with Harry earlier in the day. Infact, that’s probably why he went after Nick anyway, feeling upset after the fight. Harry making him think about Zayn.

Except it wasn’t really Zayn that had got him upset so much, as it was when Harry said that stuff about the club and about him being controlling. About him treating Nick like shit.

The truth is Nick has made him feel more confident about his skills, that had helped him to go out and get his placement with Bourne Free, the Pride Festival. And he’d promised his Mum he was going to be more open to things, to be more receptive she’d said.

They’d had a few good chats at Christmas. She’d seemed a little tired and worried and it hurt Louis, made him guilty that he’d worried her. But he can’t seem to help himself. He’s still sad and it’s still hard and he’s not heartbroken over Zayn so that's not even an excuse. 

Louis sits up properly. What had Nick said last night, that he wasn’t pining after that other bloke. Louis wasn’t pining either, he’d just felt betrayed, like Nick did with his fancy Ibiza club and his ex treating him like an outgoing expense.

Louis thinks about Nick and him building the floor and Nick’s nice wide mouth laughing and the way he just knew that Louis wanted to hear him talk when they were having sex and how lost he always got when Louis flirted with him. And about how he tried and tried to talk to him after that one time. How much he tried. It'd be nice to have Nick. But he'd just fuck it up. He's bitter and mean. And there's not anything that he can do for Nick, Nick is a bit sorted, seems to be sad and all sure, but he's his own person, he's not got a real need for Louis. 

He lies there thinking in circles for a while until he dozes off. Harry wakes him when he comes in a little later, this time he’s carrying two cups of tea and smells like he’s showered. Louis should do that.

 

“So you and Nick.” Harry says.

“Don’t start again Haz, it’s your Birthday I just want to give you birthday punches all day and love you.” Louis says sitting up hold his hands out for his tea.

“I saw you taking him upstairs.” Harry’s face is barely constrained glee.

“Oh.” Louis blows on the top of his drink, “Nothing happened last night really, we kind of talked.”

“Douglas and I can’t stop chatting.” Harry’s eyebrow wiggle is painfully exaggerated.

“No, we talked.” Louis says flatly, not giving into Harry's stupid dimples.

Harry slurps loudly and Louis takes a breath and says, “I think I’m over Zayn. I think I’m just angry that he was a dickhead and a shit friend and…”

“Yeah.” Harry says. “I don’t think you ever loved him, I think you just got used to doing things for him and I think that you think that’s the only way people will love you.”

Louis almost spills his tea, “What?”

“I don’t know, I haven't totally worked it out, just you always like doing things for everyone, and you are always wanting to be busy and somehow I think you forget that we like you just for you, not just the things you do.”

Louis presses his lips together, “Huh.”

They sit in silence for a bit, just sipping their tea Louis feels Harry’s words work their way into his core. Had he been playing catch up with Zayn for so long that he started thinking that he had to do that with every relationship? Run after people and try to make them happy. He's not sure.

“Harry, want to have a cuddle till Liam makes us go and clean?”

 

**—…—**

 

**March**

 

Louis is being perfectly nice.

He’s stopped avoiding him and he’s still busy and not in at work as much as the first few months after Nick arrived, but he’s happy when Nick sees him. Jokes about stuff, one day he asks if Nick wants to go to see Bournemouth play Crystal Palace with him and Harry and Liam, 'Niall got tickets but he’s off with his rugby team.'

Nick says yes. He hates football.

But Louis doesn’t bring up the night of Harry’s party and he certainly never comes in and says that Nick can take him out for dinner, so football with all the others Nick will go to.

 

Then one afternoon Louis turns up at the club with two women who climb a ladder and start doing something to the ceiling over the center of the dance floor.

Nick had been working on a roster for the next month and comes out to hear the words, “That’s the stud there.”

“Hi, it’s me.” He agrees.

“Beam love, we’re hanging a disco ball as a surprise for someone so we needed to find the beam.” One of the women says with a snort.

Nick looks at Louis who’s gone a little pink and is biting his lip. He’s never got the damn thing hung because there was no truss over the centre of the floor and he wanted it right in the middle. But yeah, he needed to have the beam found and he never did.

“I’ll leave you to it.” Nick says and goes back into his little office. Listens to the sounds of an electric drill and three people carrying a disco ball through some narrow door ways and finally because he’s feeling a little too happy about this all he sends a message to Aimee asking if it’s true love if the guy hangs your glittery ball from the ceiling.

She sends back a video of baby-Ada, who’s huge all of a sudden, throwing a spoon of some type of mashed vegetable in Ian’s face, he turns and looks at the camera and says “True love is shown in many ways Grim.”

 

It’s about thirty minutes before Louis comes in, stops in door way smiling, and opens his mouth to speak, then stops. His face crumples a little and he looks confused.

He sounds hurt when he speaks, “What the fuck is that Nick?” And he points at the tiny space behind Nick where the filing cabinet is. Oh and the bag of Zayn’s stuff.

“I took it out of that locker, that day you were...”

“And you kept it?”

“Well, I was going to throw it away but it wasn’t mine to do that I guess.”

“Right.” Louis seems to force himself to look at him, “Um, your ball is up. Those women are from the float building, proper carpenters and electrician, thought that’d make you happy.” He takes a whistling breath and before Nick can do anything he’s pushed into the little room and reached over and pulled the bag out violently.

 

Nick listens to him go down the steps. He doesn’t come back straight away and so after a bit Nick goes down after him.

Louis is crouching down against the wall trying to light a cigarette.

“You alright?” Nick asks, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry if I fucked up Louis.”

“He was my ex.” Louis says. “I guess you knew that though, you could have guessed, or one of the lads told you.” He cups his hand against the wind and gets it lit finally.

“He just left, not even a cheque goodbye.” He looks up then, gives a grim attempt at a smile, “And I went into shock I think, took all summer to get my head round it, we never were actually proper together. We never said that. But we were. I did everything with him, and...” He takes another shuddery breath, his voice sounding very small, “And with him in mind.”

Nick’s a bit too angry, he hates this guy far too much for someone he’s never met, but he made Louis sound small and he’s left Louis injured and that’s enough reason for him to hate him.

“You’re very loyal Louis, I don’t know the man but it sounds like he took advantage of you.”

Louis stands up suddenly. “Do you mean I’m weak? Get taken advantage of. Like a fool?”

“What? No, Jesus, I think your annoyingly smart you little shit.”

Louis gives a bitter laugh. “I’m an unlovable mess, I either hide from everyone or drive everyone the fuck away.”

“What? Do you have _any_ fucking idea how much people fucking love...” Nick runs his hand through his hair tries to steady himself with a breath. “You must know how fucking much you are cared about.”

Louis makes a sort of incredulous snort, must be sucking hard on his fag, the end burns brightly and sizzles.

“You know when we came in early the other day early to meet the damn plumber and there's fucking Denise got a vacuum stuck on her back and she stops to come over to tell me to look out for you that day. But I already knew that see, ‘cos fucking Harry had messaged first bloody thing, who knows how fucking early he got up to do that, and Nola in Costa had told me when I stopped off for coffee, fucking Liam bloody sent me four fucking snapchats, all of ‘em with that fucking beautifying filter on them and all of them telling me to look after you and fucking why Louis why?”

Louis kicks at an invisible rock, finishes the rest of his cigarette.

“Did your football team lose? Did you fall of your damn vespa bike thing? Did your goldfish die? No you’re just your same old stroppy self. ‘Just seemed a little down this morning’ is what Nola said when I asked her what was actually wrong with you! And here’s me, I’m always trying to talk to you, trying to tell you how fucking hot I think you are, how I want to take you out.”

“Once.” Louis interrupts, “Once you told me that you wanted to go out.”

Nick is utterly incredulous, “Well I didn’t want to keep at you if you weren’t interested, not after what happened when we went home that time did I? Always fucking up with you I am.”

Nick stops. He’s starting to feel a bit sick. He never really talks about stuff. Bloody hates it. Bloody hates confrontation. Yelling. Just wants to run away from any yelling. But here’s fucking Louis Tomlinson always fucking here. In his head, in his club, in his best mate’s house, in his head. Making him have feelings and being dismissive and hanging disco balls and Nick can't stop liking him no matter how many spin classes he does and how many nights out with Fiona he has and how quickly he replies to any message from his mates in London. He’s not able to stop thinking about Louis.

Louis who’s looking at him with his mouth open and eyes wide. Nick watches as Louis blinks and shuts his mouth and blinks and swallows. As he glances away and back again and repeats this except when  he looks back at Nick this time his eyes are fucking full of tears.

Nick's going to be sick.

“I’m going to to stocktake.” Louis says, not blinking and he goes back inside.

 

Nick pulls his phone out and looks at his messages, scrolls up and down and then opens the thread with Aimee.

Fuck it.

He goes back inside and straight into the stockroom. Louis has his back to him, he’s bent over, his head on his arms and he might be sobbing. His shoulders are shaking.

Nick is across the room in a moment, manhandling Louis to turn around and crouching down a little so he can see in his eyes and then ducking in to kiss his cheek. Louis proper cries now.

Nick pulls him in. Has him sob on his chest. Runs his hand over his head, his stupid flower smelling hair.

“Lou. Lou.” He says gently. “I’m so sorry Lou.”

It’s a little while and Louis pulls away, sniffs in loud gross way and wipes his eyes with the cuffs of his jumper.

“I’m tired Nick. I keep doing this. Keep being upset about stuff. I don’t know why. I should go, I should get another job.”

“No you fucking won’t,” Nick overrules him. “Louis, please I don’t know what to say...” Nick breaks off. “I want you. I just want to be with you. Let me.”

Louis looks up, his eyes bloodshot and puffy and beautiful, “Nick I’m perpetually ‘aving a crisis, got no idea what I’m doing next year, tomorrow and I am shit in the mornings and I’ve got bad chest muscles.”

“What?” Nick reaches out for him again, pulls him closer, “What the fuck are you on about you’re well fit, fucking gorgeous, and life just a perpetual crisis anyway I reckon.”

“I mean there’s all this stuff, I’ve got, messy stuff. And you are nice, patient and fit too. I like your pointy lips and your secret freckles. And I've been talking it through with Harry a bit and I think he said something like you did. About why I think people like me, or don't. And I know it's true, but also then I just come back to how I am a mess though."

He laughs a little, deflective laughing Nick thinks, but also he's selfish and his mind is stuck on the way Louis called him fit. He shouldn't say anything about that though. It's probably wrong to be so fucking suddenly flushed with what, joy, a thrill, when your hugging someone who's just been crying. But Louis thinks he's nice. Likes his pointy lips.

“Fit?” Nick ends up saying anyway because of course he does.

“Annoying,” Louis says sarcastically, but then is serious again, “but I’m annoying. And in the beginning I thought all this stuff about you and I don’t even know why.”

“It’s ok, we’ll talk it out, or just ignore it and give each other really good blow jobs and forget.”

Louis gives this a little laugh and sounds pleased when he says, “Yeah you liked that?”

“Fucking get hard just thinking about it.” He bends to kiss him again, “Let me Louis, let us. I know it’s not perfect or anything but I can’t stop thinking about you and you’re funny and I want you. All the bits, the bits when you are shit at mornings and if you have nights which are a bit shit I want those too.”

Louis kisses him back then. A bit hard and his teeth are there and he tastes like salt, tears maybe. But his mouth is slick and it hurts it's so good. And they kiss for a while, not really pulling away to breath, Nick chasing him every time he stops, Nick's a bit scared if he stops Louis will go. He always goes.

And he does. He pulls away and says he needs to think and Nick lets him go. Stands in the stockroom and runs his finger over Louis’ scratchy horrid handwriting on the clipboard.

 

He goes out to the main room after a while. They’ve run a cable from the nearby lighting rig, all proper attached to the ceiling as well, and the disco ball is spinning gently on it’s motor. Prickles of light flashing and sparkling around the club.

Nick makes a insta video of it and puts a little pink heart emoji on it.

 

 

It’s been a week since the disco ball and the stockroom crying and Louis is a slumped figure standing by the flagpole in the centre of the square. Nick walks up next to him without saying hello and Louis turns in surprise and blows his smoke up into Nick’s face.

“Nice.” Nick says.

Louis shifts his glance away and swears under his breath. Sucks at his fag again.

Jesus. It’s bloody cold and this all very dramatic.

“What am I doing here Louis? Why’d you message me?”

Louis is stares at his feet, skidding the ball of his trainer back and forth on the paver. Nick thinks he’ll just go, it’s cold as fuck and he needs a coffee. Then Louis looks at him suddenly, turns his body whole body and seems to swallow as he pulls his hoodie off his head. Something drops in Nick's stomach, nerves all of a sudden.

“I woke up this morning and I had nothing to do but hear your voice.  Nothing that I wanted to do...” He breaks off, he’s not blinking, he folds his lips in and breathes deeply through his nose and when he speaks again his voice is soft and Nick leans in to hear without meaning to.

“Nothing that I wanted to do but hear your voice.”

Nick reaches out and steals the cigarette from Louis’ fingers for something to do, he’s surprised his hand isn’t trembling.

Louis doesn’t protest, instead when Nick opens his eyes after inhaling deeply Louis’ looking at him steady and unerring, glancing from his lips to his eyes and back. And Nick is tired.

He’s spent a long time trying his hardest. Trying at work, trying to be happy, trying to move on, trying to be good and normal and get out of bed and fuck. He’s tired of wanting to get the chance to see where things could go with Louis.

Nick’s heart is beating a million miles an hour. He shouldn’t be smoking this cigarette. He’s dying and he’s pretty sure Louis is telling him that he’s. That he’s…

Fucking, Nick has no idea _what_ he’s telling him.

“What?” 

Louis shoots a murderous look at him and flips his hoodie back up over his head. “Shit. Fucking pillock. I’m trying to tell you yes.”

Nick drops the fag, realises his mouth is hanging open a little, but he licks his dry lips and shoots his hands out. Grabs Louis’ wrists and takes them away from toying with the string at the bottom of the hood, brings them down to either side of him and steps in closer, uses his chin to butt gently at the hood on Louis’ forehead.

“Don’t hide.”

He lets go of Louis’s wrists, well one, because he’s pretty sure Louis is going to turn around and just take the fuck off if he actually lets go of him. Nick’s very close to having ballsed this all completely up, again.

His stomach is swimming and he feels hot even though it is so bloody cold. Why is it always cold in Bournemouth. But he takes the hand still holding Louis’ wrist and puts that one behind Louis’ own back, uses it to press Louis in against him, hips nice and flush with Nick’s body. And he uses his other hand to come up and push that fucking hoodie down, to run a thumb along Louis’ stupid cheekbones and to tip his face up. He still looks murderous but Nick bends down and whispers, “I’m sorry I’m a bit slow love.” Right against Louis’ lips, and he feels Louis smile against his own.

“I’m always fucking telling people that,” he says.

 

Nick kisses him then. Holds him still and kisses Louis a bit hard and a bit unbelieving. He can feel Louis’ free hand curling in a tight grip on his shoulder, stubby nailed fingers hanging on in a bruising kind of way. And it’s probably a bit much for mid afternoon in the pedestrian only zone in the high street, but Nick can’t help it. He’s got Louis all against him, in a way that he arranged, not able to go anywhere and not mouthing off and just letting him kiss him and hold him still and fuck if that doesn’t mean Nick is going to kiss him in a way that is a bit too filthy, a way that means he pulls back and bites at Louis’ bottom lip just so he can watch him open his eyes and show Nick if his pupils have got any darker.

“Yeah,” Nick says and then kisses him again, steps into it and sort of lifts Louis’ body and against his own, gets them so he’s got a leg pressing right up in between Louis’ and the only way he’s not falling over is because of Nick’s hold on his back and the way his arm has proper wrapped over Nick’s shoulder now.

It’s probably not that long at all. Probably only a just a minute if even, but before Nick can really settle into enjoying it, before he can proper get into the idea of having Louis rut against him in public there’s some obnoxious whistling and Louis is jumping back scared and Nick’s got a settling hand on his upper arm and has to sort of adjust himself at the same time as make sure they aren’t being heckled at by some homophobic prick. But it’s just the two ladies who work in the caff and Nick waves and can’t help the grin that crosses his face and he pulls Louis back into him.

 

“Come on, come back to ours for your tea?” He asks as they start turning around.

“I thought I was getting taken out for dinner.”

“Maybe tomorrow, I want to go home and do stuff.”

Louis starts to laugh, “Do _stuff_. All right, tea at yours then, want something proper mind, not just out of a box, no potato waffles or fish fingers.”

“No fingers.” Nick repeats, catches Louis’ upwards glance and shrugs a little, “Hopefully some fingers.”

Louis reaches down and slaps his bottom really quickly and then does this odd sort of skip run ahead. He turns back around, walking backwards and fuck, he’s got this little smile, that turns into a grin and Nick is warm and his chest is full and he’s smiling back and he’s still a bit turned on and fuck. He’d said all he wanted to do was hear his voice.

And that’s a start. Nick can work with that.

**—…—**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I'm [Silvered Glass](https://silveredglass.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you'd like to chat.


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